Cybersecurity firm: Israel used spyware to target hotels hosting Iran nuclear talks

(Image credit: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr./Bloomberg via Getty Images)

published 10 June 2015

On Wednesday, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab is releasing a report suggesting that Israel used a sophisticated electronic virus to eavesdrop on sensitive Iran nuclear negotiations at three luxury hotels, The Wall Street Journal reports. Kaspersky doesn't identify Israel by name, as is its custom, but it drops sly hints in its report. And "the spyware, the firm has now concluded, was an improved version of Duqu, a virus first identified by cybersecurity experts in 2011," The Journal reports. "Current and former U.S. officials and many cybersecurity experts believe Duqu was designed to carry out Israel's most sensitive intelligence-collection operations.

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Kaspersky, based in Moscow, first discovered the virus on its own computers in the spring, then did a search of the computers of its 270,000 corporate clients worldwide. The only three hotels infected were ones that hosted the Iran nuclear talks, and each was infected two to three weeks before the Iranian and Western negotiators arrived. Kaspersky said it doesn't know how the spyware was used, but it could have taken control of any number of the hotels' systems and used them to eavesdrop on conversations and steal computer files. The FBI told The Journal it is looking into Kaspersky's findings.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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