Last week, Kaspersky Lab uncovered a cyber-espionage toolset dubbed The Mask, that it says is targeting government institutions, energy companies and other high-profile victims in South Africa.

Simon Campbell-Young, CEO of Phoenix Distribution, says Kaspersky estimates The Mask to have been around since as early as 2007. “The Mask is a highly sophisticated and complex toolset, and is made up of malware, a rootkit and a bootkit. It has also been designed across various platforms, including Mac OS X and Linux.”

He says the toolset has been designed with the theft of private information in mind. “This sensitive data includes documents, VPN configurations, SSH keys, encryption keys and RDP files.”

The attack is believed to be a nation-state sponsored campaign, due largely to its sophistication and professionalism. According to Kaspersky, this particular campaign made use of spear-phishing e-mails with links to a malicious Web site.

“Nation-states are becoming increasingly successful at gleaning all sorts of useful personal information about specific employees, through social media and suchlike. With this information in hand, they are able to trick unsuspecting employees into downloading malware onto the company networks. Once inside, attackers can stealthily move around, taking root, and slowly exfiltrating closely guarded secrets about competitive commercial technologies, military weapons’ systems, vulnerabilities and intellectual property,” Campbell-Young explains.

“In the case of The Mask, an infection can be catastrophic. The toolset intercepts each and every communication channel and collects the most crucial information from the target’s machine. Due to its stealth rootkit capabilities detection is extremely tricky.”

Over and above combating today's all-encompassing organised cybercrime organisations, organisations must start to view their adversaries as far more sophisticated and cunning, and willing and able to carry out devastating cyber-attacks, he stresses. Unfortunately, he says today’s businesses are not taking the threat of cyber espionage seriously enough, and do not have adequate measures and protocols in place to prevent or mitigate such an attack.

Cyber crooks are no longer only after your financial login credentials, they are after your most sensitive intellectual property. “They want hugely valuable data, such as your technology blueprints, your customer lists, or even worse embarrassing information you wouldn’t want the public to know about.”

He says all businesses have information that should it be leaked, could be seriously damaging to them. “Sadly, cyber espionage is often overlooked in the flurry to fend off cyber criminals from stealing financial data. This needs to change and businesses must be cognisant of the threat posed by losing important proprietary information, and the potential fallout.”

Campbell-Young says the key to fighting cyber espionage is a combination of good security tools, collaboration and education. “Private and public sector must join forces, and work together to share information about cyber espionage threats and breaches. They must work together to develop effective defences and educate themselves about this sort of threat and the potential consequences.”

He notes that Kaspersky Lab’s products detect and remove all known versions of The Mask malware.

About Phoenix Distribution

Phoenix Distribution is currently the leading Value Added distributor of software, accessories and peripherals across the African continent, covering software publishing, localisation and product distribution across multiple territories in multiple languages. The business is segmented into two divisions, namely corporate software licensing and consumer product distribution.

The business is segmented into two divisions, namely corporate software licensing and retail product distribution, and Phoenix Distribution dominates the consumer and SMB security sectors through key brands which include: Norton/Symantec, AVG, Kaspersky and Bitdefender. Additional brands within the consumer-focused range include, Microsoft software and peripherals, Beats by Dr Dre, Trendnet Wireless products, Monster Cables and mobile accessories.

The corporate licensing division sells volume licensing into the enterprise and SMB reseller environments, as well as covering architecture and implementation. The ESD division delivers download content into all channels, including B2B and B2C.

The retail division delivers physical product into the retail environment, covering all mainstream ICT, CES, telco, lifestyle, fashion and sports outlets, as well as independents and online stores. This division delivers direct to outlets and or customers across sub-Saharan Africa.

Phoenix Distribution is growing at 70% per annum, with additional acceleration coming from development within the greater African marketplace, as well as the acquisition of significant high-end product lines within the enterprise arena. In addition, the company’s UK business, PX Security, is firmly entrenched within the UK retail and SMB reseller environments, shipping product through trusted distribution partners into mainstream retail outlets and direct engagement with B2B resellers. The UK operation publishes and distributes Bitdefender, Webroot and Avast.

Additional bespoke services offered to partners include Electronic Software Distribution within the B2B and B2C environments, category management, training and end-to-end merchandising.

Phoenix Distribution, including the UK subsidiary PX Security, was recently acquired by First Technology Holdings.