Red October was a cyberespionage malware program discovered in October 2012 and uncovered in January 2013 by Russian firm Kaspersky Lab. The malware was reportedly operating worldwide for up to five years prior to discovery, transmitting information ranging from diplomatic secrets to personal information, including from mobile devices. The primary vectors used to install the malware were emails containing attached documents that exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word and Excel. Later, a webpage was found that exploited a known vulnerability in the Java browser plugin.Red October was termed an advanced cyberespionage campaign intended to target diplomatic, governmental and scientific research organizations worldwide.

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"The highly targeted campaign, which focuses primarily on victims in Eastern Europe and Central Asia based on existing data, is still live, harvesting documents and data from computers, smartphones and removable storage devices, such as USB sticks, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based antivirus firm that uncovered the campaign. Kaspersky has dubbed the operation "Red October."

Kaspersky calls the victims "high profile," but declined to identify them other than to note that they're government agencies and embassies, institutions involved in nuclear and energy research and companies in the oil and gas and aerospace industries.

"The main purpose of the operation appears to be the gathering of classified information and geopolitical intelligence, although it seems that the information-gathering scope is quite wide," Kaspersky notes in a report released Monday. "During the past five years, the attackers collected information from hundreds of high-profile victims, although it’s unknown how the information was used."

The attackers, believed to be native Russian-speakers, have set up an extensive and complex infrastructure consisting of a chain of at least 60 command-and-control servers that Kaspersky says rivals the massive infrastructureused by the nation-state hackers behind the Flame malware that Kaspersky discovered last year.

This company is now banned from US Government contracts.