Regin, the super spyware recently outed, was operating in the shadows for several years. Latest reports claim that the biggest question of all- who was behind it - has been solved.
Technical analysts at The Intercept dug hard into the matter. The publication concluded its research by claiming that Regin as suspected, was the work of the U.S. and British intelligence agencies to conduct sophisticated spy operations on the EU and a Belgian telecommunications company, Belgacom.
The Intercept is known for its straight-forward reporting. During the Edward Snowden crisis it continued to publish documents leaked by Edward Snowden after Glenn Greenwald's departure from The Guardian.
Symantec originally traced the malicious malware and published a detailed report of the highly targeted attack. The stealthy sophisticated malware was designed to spy on government organizations, businesses as well as private individuals. While the security company concluded that Regin looked like the work of a nation-state backed project, it wasn't able to trace the country behind its operation.
Ronald Prins, a security expert from Fox IT who worked on Belgacom's networks to remove the malware, said Regin is the most sophisticated malware.
"Having analyzed this malware and looked at the [previously published] Snowden documents," Prins told The Intercept in an interview. "I'm convinced Regin is used by British and American intelligence services."
Some also blamed Russia and China as the developers of Regin, but those claims were quickly rubbished by industry experts.
"We believe Regin is not coming from the usual suspects. We don't think Regin was made by Russia or China," Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, told the Guardian.
Regin was not found in any computers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. The virus was discovered mostly in Saudi Arabia and Russia, reports the Guardian
The National Security Agency and the British spy agency, GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), declined to comment on the matter.
"We don't comment on speculation. That's what it is, pure speculation on your part," GCHQ spokesperson told Mashable in a phone interview.
