Russia’s Elite Hackers Have a Clever New Trick That's Very Hard to Fix

The Fancy Bear hacking group has plenty of tools at its disposal, as evidenced by its attacks against the Democratic National Committee, the Pyeongchang Olympics, and plenty more. But cybersecurity firm ESET appears to have caught the elite Russian team using a technique so advanced, it hadn’t ever been seen in the wild until now.

ESET found what’s known as a UEFI rootkit, which is a way to gain persistent access to a computer that’s hard to detect and even harder to clean up, on an unidentified victim’s machine. The technique isn’t unheard of; researchers have explored proofs of concept in the past, and leaked files have indicated that both the CIA and the independent exploit-focused company Hacking Team have had the capability. But evidence that it has happened, in the form of malware called LoJax, represents a significant escalation in the Fancy Bear—which ESET calls Sednit—toolkit.