U.S. and British Intelligence Agencies Co-opted Regin Malware

Regin malware — first spotted this week by Symantec — looks to be a co-opted effort by U.S. and British intelligence agencies. The malware was able to spy on various European Union and Belgium Internet communications.
Various security experts who have looked over the malware call it the most sophisticated ever, drawing comparisons to the co-opted effort between the U.S. and Israel against the Iranian nuclear programs a few years ago.

GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) was the main force behind the malware creation. Named Operation Socialist, the British intelligence agency hacked into computer systems by sending a fake LinkedIn page to engineers, when clicked, the page would send malware through the system, corrupting almost every part.
Belgacom communications was the main target for GCHQ, the largest communications company in Belgium. The corporate communications service handles sensitive data from all types of agencies, making it a powerful asset for intelligence groups.
Regin was worked on for a few years and has an impressive number of features to make it nearly undetectable. The most important is the disguise, looking like a simple Microsoft program to those who do not look further into the application.
The malware was capable of spreading to different computer systems and accessing whole networks, allowing the U.S. and British intelligence groups to get access to most private data in the European Union.
Considering the political landscape in the UK at the moment, it is interesting the government is so gun-ho about acquiring data from Europe. The next UK election is all about whether the country will stay or leave Europe, with all parties looking for stronger controls against helping poorer countries.
Neither the NSA or GCHQ has responded to comments on the issue. It looks like both intelligence groups are once again remaining silent and hoping the whole thing blows over.