Russian Cyber Spies Have Exploited Two Previously Unknown Security Flaws to Spy on U.S. Targets

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April 19, 2015

A widely reported Russian cyber-spying campaign against diplomatic targets in the United States and elsewhere has been using two previously unknown flaws in software to penetrate target machines, a security company investigating the matter said on Saturday.

FireEye Inc (FEYE.O), a prominent U.S. security company, said the espionage effort took advantage of holes in Adobe Systems Inc’s (ADBE.O) Flash software for viewing active content and Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) ubiquitous Windows operating system.

The campaign has been tied by other firms to a serious breach at U.S. State Department computers. The same hackers are also believed to have broken into White House machines containing unclassified but sensitive information such as the president’s travel schedule.

FireEye has been assisting the agencies probing those attacks, but it said it could not comment on whether the spies are the same ones who penetrated the White House because that would be classified as secret.