Hague Says UK Government Was Hit By Trojan

UK government computers were successfully infected by a variant of the Zeus information-stealing Trojan in late December, Foreign Secretary William Hague has revealed.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Hague said the government was targeted with fake emails that appeared to have come from the White House.

Zeus variant

The emails asked users to click on a link, which then downloaded the Zeus variant, according to Hague.

“The UK government was targeted in this attack and a large number of emails bypassed some of our filters,” Hague said in a speech before conference attendees. “Our experts were able to clear up the infection, but more sophisticated attacks such as these are becoming more common.”

At the conference, Hague called for international agreements to set “norms” for the way governments act in the online world. He spoke at a time when incidents such as the Stuxnet attack on Iranian nuclear plants are underscoring the potential danger from warfare in cyberspace.

It has been estimated that the Stuxnet Trojan may have knocked out as many as 1,000 centrifuges at Iran’s nuclear facility in 2010, and experts have warned that it heralds a new breed of Trojans that will attack more devices that are not computers in 2011. The New York Times has reported that Stuxnet was developed jointly by the US and Israel, and tested on Israel’s own secret nuclear installations.

On Friday the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation called for an investigation into the claims of US and Israeli involvement in Stuxnet.

“We believe that the time has come to seek international agreement about norms in cyberspace,” Hague said.

Standards needed

He called for a “structured dialogue” to build the basis for a set of standards on “how countries should act in cyberspace”.

Hague said the UK will aim to host a cyber-security conference this summer to explore ways in which such standards can be given “real political and diplomatic weight”.

The aim of such standards would be to ensure that governments act “proportionately” and “in accordance with national and international law”, according to Hague.