After Swiss defence department, Turla malware attacks a contractor's system in the foreign affairs

Switzerland's government says state cyberexperts detected and prevented an attempted cyberattack on the Swiss defense department, while another attack "disrupted" the systems of a contractor for the foreign affairs department.[caption id="attachment_3378508" align="alignleft" width="380"] Representational image. Thinkstock.[/caption]The federal chancellery says in a statement that ill-intentioned hackers used the well-known Turla malware in the July attack against the servers of the defense department. It didn't elaborate.

The defense and foreign affairs departments each filed a legal complaint with federal prosecutors, who are investigating. The office of Attorney General Michael Lauber confirmed receipt of the complaints, but declined to comment further.

In an e-mail, foreign affairs department spokesman Jean-Marc Crevoisier said the attack against the contractor, which was not specified, had not been previously disclosed to allow authorities to secure the computer systems. He declined to comment further.

The Turla spyware was detected in 2014 and suspected of infecting hundreds of government computers and military targets across Europe and the Middle East.

Several security researchers and Western intelligence officers say they believe the malware, widely known as Turla, is the work of the Russian government and linked to the same software used to launch a massive breach on the U.S. military uncovered in 2008.

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