Five Eyes (Five eyes)

Five eyes - alliance of five intelligences of the USA, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The collective tool which works only for tasks of Anglo-Saxon elite.

About cooperation of intelligences of the USA and Great Britain Churchill and Roosevelt agreed in 1940. In 1948 Australia and New Zealand joined the formal agreement Canada, in 1956. When France wanted to enter alliance to it refused.

"Five eyes" jointly developed the system of global tracking Echelon, they it is the PRISM, XKeyscore, Tempora, MUSCULAR and STATEROOM systems.

In alliance there is permanent information exchange about citizens. The NSA has the right to monitor citizens of Great Britain. Once, at the request of Margaret Thatcher the Canadian intelligence agencies monitored members of the British cabinet.

Actually, runaway Edward Snowden once told that in it and there is an essence of "Five eyes" - a bypass of the domestic legislation and shadowing the citizens hands of intelligence services of allies on alliance.

History

2019: Attack on "Yandex"

On June 27, 2019 the western investigation cracked "Yandex" to spy on accounts. The company confirmed the attacks, but assured that data of users managed to be saved.

According to Reuters with reference to informed sources, from October to November, 2018 the hackers working for intelligence agencies intruded in computer systems of "Yandex" and implemented rare type of the malware under the name Regin. This virus is used by prospecting alliance Five Eyes which includes intelligence agencies of the USA, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. However to define what of five states stood behind an attack on "Yandex", it is impossible, interlocutors of the agency reported.

Interlocutors of Reuters specified that technical features of how "Yandex" defines authenticity of an input in accounts were the purpose of the attack

In the publication it is said that hackers, most likely, looked for the technical information which could explain how "Yandex" sets authenticity of accounts. This information can help hackers to issue itself for  users of "Yandex" and to get access to their private messages. Sources claim that espionage, but not theft of intellectual property was the purpose of the attack.

According to Reuters, hackers secretly supported access to "Yandex" within several weeks before they were detected.

"Yandex" addressed to Kaspersky Lab which established that the attacks were directed to a development team of "Yandex", three informants told Reuters. The Russian producer of anti-virus software confirmed that hackers acted using Regin. 

The ex-employee of CIA Edward Snowden told about use by the countries of Five Eyes of a malicious code Regin for the first time in 2014. That initially spoke about the tool for cybercracking under the name QWERTY which, according to Snowden, was actively used by intelligence of the USA and the countries allies. Then producers of antiviruses, including Kaspersky Lab and Symantec, reported what in terms of the source code QWERTY in many respects matches the solution for cracking which these companies called Regin.

At the end of June, 2019 in Symantec reported to Reuters that the company detected the new version of Regin recently.  In Symantec refrained from additional details, having referred to confidentiality terms in the customer agreement.

Regin is a pearl of the attacking tools used for espionage.  Its architecture, complexity and opportunities are at the high level — the technical director of Symantec Security Response Vikram Thakur says.  — We saw the different Regin components in the last several months.

According to the expert, considering a viktimologiya and also investments which are necessary for creation, support and work of a virus, "there are at best several countries which could support" this virus.

In the fall of 2018 the hackers connected with investigation of the western countries cracked the systems of "Yandex" and implemented in them the malware

Kaspersky Lab refused comments at the request of Reuters. Also representatives of intelligence agencies of the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Management of the national intelligence of the USA arrived.

The representative of "Yandex" Ilya Grabovsky confirmed to Reuters information on cyber attack, but emphasized that the security service of the company identified it "at very early stage" and completely neutralized "before any damage was caused".^[1] 

In "Yandex" specified that the fact of cyber attack was, however it did not come to the end with success.

Our specialists timely revealed this attempt of the attack and neutralized right at the beginning. Thanks to what the attack was prevented before causing any damage. We can assure that malefactors could not get data access of users of services "Yandex — told TAdviser in the press service of "Yandex".

Notes

See Also