Meet Red October: The Global Cyber-Espionage Ring That Spent 5 Years in the Shadows

There are plenty of cyberweapons floating around out there, like Stuxnet, Flame, and that whole gang. Now, Kaspersky has turned up a cyber-espoinage operation its dubbed "Red October," and it's up there in the big leagues. But unlike its cohorts, it doesn't look state-sponsored. This is a freelance job, and it's professional grade.

While Red October has only recently been discovered, it's been working behind the scenes for a long time. According to its domain names and various details dug up from the executable code, it's been doing its thing since 2007, if not earlier. And what is its thing? Harvesting loads of classified information from high-profile targets across the globe—including the United States, but mostly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. And it's got quite the stash.

Red October has been infecting targets through vulnerabilities in MS Word and MS Excel. Once there's a foothold, the infected devices call back to command servers for customized packages of malware signed with victim-specific 20 digit codes.