Cyber Crooks Threatens National Security with RAT

Despite recent moves by Nigeria to enact a cyber crime law to combat the global scourge, a study by Symantec – the leading security firm, shows the rogues are inventing more ingenuous routes to unleash terror on government infrastructures and multinational operations.

Katie Beck, Symantec’s group PR manager, EMEA Mid-Size & Growth Countries Corporate Communications stated that cyber criminals are getting more sophisticated in their deployment of technology at beating the system.

“Cybercriminal operations are becoming increasingly sophisticated, a trend that is likely to continue in the future.”

The Symantec study on new trends of cyber attacks show criminals deploying remote access Trojan (RAT). In one instance, RAT was configured to contact a command-and-control (C&C) server located in Ukraine (one of the nations from the defunct Soviet Union legacy).

Using the RAT, the attacker immediately took control of an office administrative assistant’s infected computer. This way, “they logged keystrokes, viewed the desktop, and browsed and exfiltrated files.”

Nigeria’s vulnerability is made worst by the fact that government businesses are conducted via open email infrastructure across the nation.

Most ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) rather than use dedicated platforms for official government-to-government businesses, use open sources like yahoomail for official transactions.

According to the Symantec study, “Mobile Wi-Fi hotspots act like GSM cellular radios (equivalent to a GSM phone) that can provide Internet access to a computer system through the mobile phone network.

This potentially provides anonymity for the attacker if the GSM SIM card for the mobile Wi-Fi hotspot is purchased in cash at a bazaar or private sale. Many 3G providers around the world allow the purchasing of a prepaid data plan without verifying the identity of the buyer. As a result, telecom records will not lead to an individual.”

But a senior corporate communications staff of a leading mobile operator in Lagos pleading anonymity told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek it was unlikely to have some purchase a prepaid data plan without his details properly verified.

When confronted with facts that pre-registered SIM cards are sold in the open market across operators platforms, he insisted that it was not possible.

Roselyn Isimeto, a Computer Science lecturer at the University of Lagos noted that cyber crime is a scourge of the new age and nations need to invest in IT infrastructure to keep attacks at minimal levels.

She noted that Nigeria’s critical economic infrastructure in key sectors like oil and gas, telecommunications, electricity, aviation and finance are at risk of major knock down by cyber crooks.

Beck noted that attackers usually begin by “compromising systems within an organization using their RAT. Once the systems were infected with the RAT, the attacker retrieved identifying information, including disaster recovery plans, of the organization’s bank and telecom providers, its points of contact with both providers and its bank and telecom account data.

“Using this data, the attacker was able to impersonate a company representative and called the organization’s telecom provider. They proved their authenticity to the telecom provider, claimed that a physical disaster had occurred and said that they needed all of the organization’s phone numbers to be redirected to attacker-controlled phones.”

But Nigeria said it is working on a law to curb the menace.

Labaran Maku, minister of information stated that the “objective of the (new) cyber crime law (2003) is to prove an effective, unified and comprehensive legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of cyber crimes in Nigeria – promote cyber security and ensure the protection of critical national information infrastructure.”

Maku says “there is need for cooperation and international coalition to combat cyber crimes. Cyber crimes are species of cross-border crimes perpetrated in time and space from any geographical spot in the world.”

Consequently, he noted that the new Nigerian cyber crime law is bring the country to the fulfillment of the ‘Budapest Convention on Cyber crime and reflects Nigeria’s obligations under the soon-to-be fomalised African Union (AU) Convention on the subject matter.”