Hackers have been spying on diplomats in Belarus for years. Report published
Foreign diplomats from four countries were under surveillance for years by a group of hackers in Belarus. Such reports were published by Reuters, based on information from ESET.
The Slovak cybersecurity company ESET published a report describing the Belarusian “espionage campaign”. It was supposed to start in 2021 and last until now. As part of these activities, approximately 15 devices of diplomats from four countries were attacked: two European, one from South Asia and one from Africa. It was not specified which embassies were targeted by the hackers.
Diplomats targeted by Belarusian hackers
The author of the report, Matthieu Faou, pointed to manipulation of hacker victims’ access to the network. He stated that this “probably” occurred at the level of the provider of such a service. Diplomats could therefore download spyware and not even realize it for a moment.
The hackers were to break into local networks and spy on an unspecified number of diplomats. Reuters points out that this practice was carried out, among others, during the war in Ukraine and continues until now. The ESET report aims to emphasize how vulnerable and basically defenseless diplomats are in the face of hackers.
When asked for comment, the Belarusian embassy in Washington did not respond to journalists’ questions on this matter.