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11:50pm UK, Wednesday June 20, 2012 | Sam Kiley, defence and security editor | Sky News



British researchers at internet security firm Sophos are warning that internet spies have targeted the European
aerospace industry.

In what is known as a "zero-day" attack, which exploits a hitherto unknown vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows
operating system, Sophos said an aerospace supplier had been "deliberately targeted".

The cyber spies infected the company's website with malware which then infects the computers of people visiting
it - giving the spooks invisible and total control over the infected system.

The vulnerability was first noticed a few days ago by Google, which warned some of its Gmail users that there had
been attempts to break into their accounts or hack their computers using the hole in the Windows system.

Google warned then that it believed the attack on its clients was "state-sponsored".

The overwhelming majority of computers in the world run Windows. So far Microsoft has published a "workaround"
to paper over the gap in their system, but researchers are anxious that the software giant should publish a "patch"
as soon as possible.

The targeted nature of the attack led Sophos to speculate that it was likely to be a state-sponsored espionage
operation.

They also warned that now that the vulnerability had been identified on the internet, it would soon be used by
outright criminal elements.

As a result, Sophos has raised its threat level rating to its highest level - 'critical'.

Sophos does provide protection against the exploit - but the best solution of all would be to have a proper fix
from Microsoft.