British Spies Hacked Telecom Network by Luring Engineers to Fake LinkedIn Pages
British spies hacked into the routers and networks of a Belgian telecommunications company by tricking telecom engineers into clicking on malicious LinkedIn and Slashdot pages, according to documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Once engineers with Belgacom clicked on the fake pages, malware was installed surreptitiously onto their machines, giving the spooks with Britain’s GCHQ the ability to penetrate the internal networks of Belgacom and its subsidiary BICS.
The primary aim, reports the German newspaper der Spiegel, which obtained the documents, was to compromise the GRX router system that BICS controlled, in order to intercept mobile phone traffic that got transmitted by the router.
