11 November 2013 — Voice of Russia
The UK’s intelligence spying agency has been using bogus accounts created on the professional social networking site LinkedIn to target global roaming data exchange companies and spy on the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has implemented a technique known as Quantum Insert, placing its servers in strategic spots where they could intercept and redirect target traffic to a fake website faster than the legitimate service could respond.
The same technique was used earlier this year to inject malware into the systems of Belgian state-owned telecommunications company Belgacom. The data collected by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the surveillance attack emanated from the British GCHQ – and that British intelligence had palmed off spyware on several Belgacom employees.
According to new Snowden’s leaks published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, the GCHQ was also targeting networking, maintenance and security personnel of another two companies, Comfone and Mach.
Through the Quantum Insert method, GCHQ has managed to infiltrate the systems of targeted Mach employees and successfully procured detailed knowledge of the company’s communications infrastructure, business, and personal information of several important figures.
OPEC was yet another target of the Quantum Insert attack, said to the report. According to a leaked document, in 2010 GCHQ managed to infiltrate the computers of nine OPEC employees. The spying agency succeeded in penetrating the operating space of the OPEC Secretary-General and also managed to spy the on Saudi Arabian OPEC governor.
According to a security expert Bruce Schneier, Quantum Insert attacks are hard for anyone except the NSA to execute, because for that one would need to have a privileged position on the “Internet backbone,” reported the Independent.
Last week some details of GCHQ’s partnership with the NSA were revealed. UK spy agency was providing the American colleagues with the internal information intercepted from Google and Yahoo’s private networks.
A LinkedIn spokesman said that the company was “never told about this alleged activity” and it would “never approve of it, irrespective of what purpose it was used for.”
LinkedIn is the largest social networking website for creating and maintaining business contacts. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 259 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories.
The New Dark Age 