Top German official infected by highly advanced spy trojan with NSA ties

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 26 October 2015
Browse Politics

German authorities are investigating whether the head of the German Federal Chancellery unit had his laptop infected with Regin, a highly sophisticated suite of malware programs that has been linked to the NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters.

Kaspersky's investigation in 2014 into Regin is what led the researchers to first come upon The Equation Group, the name Kaspersky has given to a hacker group with NSA ties that operated clandestinely for 14 years before being discovered. The Equation Group is arguably the most sophisticated team of hackers ever to come to light.

The discovery comes after separate documents provided by Snowden in 2013 showed NSA agents eavesdropping on cell phone conversations of Merkel. Prosecutors in Germany investigated the claim but dropped the probe in June, citing insufficient evidence.

Nothing will happen. Again. Maybe another "friends don't spy on friends" line with a raised finger, but that will be about it. If that statement is really true then, logically, we are not friends.