The two-phased threat discovered by McAfee in a report observed that the threat has appeared in 87 organisations across the globe

HYDERABAD: A new worldwide cyber threat campaign called Operation Sharpshooter which has targeted, nuclear, defence, energy and financial companies, has also attacked India’s telecommunication network, a recent report revealed. This campaign masquerades as a legitimate industry job recruitment activity and gathers information for potential exploitation. 

The two-phased threat discovered by McAfee in a report, observed that the threat has appeared in 87 organisations across the globe. Though most of the companies were based in the US, the report noted that it had also attacked organisations which were English speaking or had an English-speaking regional office. Majority of targets were defence and government-related organisations, it said. 

Operation Sharpshooter uses its source code Trojan Duuzer from an infamous cyber criminal group called the Lazarus Group. Although the report did not conclude whether the attacks were indeed perpetrated by the Lazarus Group, researchers have attributed many cyber attacks to them over the last decade. The operation began on October 25 when job vacancies-related documents authored by one Richard were distributed from a US IP address and through the DropBox service to various companies around the world.