The Morpho Group Scales Up Cybersabotage Activity Anew

The hacker group tagged as “the Morpho group” by data and software security research companies has increased their economic espionage and sabotage activities.

This group was responsible for hacking attacks against tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter. They have broken into the networks of 45 large tech companies since 2012. In all, 49 companies in the tech, commodities, legal, and even pharmaceutical sectors across 20 countries have fallen victim to the Morpho group, otherwise known as “Wild Neutron.” Aside from these sectors, victims included individual users, as well as companies that are involved in investments, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, and healthcare. Even Bitcoin cryptocurrency traders were not spared.

Data security firms Symantec and Kaspersky Lab has identified that the main motive for the hacking sprees is financial gain. They expressed doubts that countries or nations could possibly be behind the group’s malevolent activity. Some incidents of massive hacking are suspected to be connected with terrorist activities, with nations and governments actually supporting the activities.

While the Morpho group had gone underground when their activities were exposed in 2013, reports indicate that attacks have since resumed, and even intensified in 2014. The system of attacks is described as “sophisticated,” and the hackers’ codes were noted to be highly fluent in English. Traces of Russian and Romanian were found in the code, however.

Symantec researchers have described the group as a “disciplined, technically capable group.” The researchers believe that the group is a formidable threat to corporations, as their capacity to stay under the radar while scaling up on their criminal activity is, indeed, a malevolent threat to cybersecurity.

Symantec and Kaspersky Labs expect the hacker group to maintain their pattern of activity, targeting companies and individuals largely for financial gain.

The Morpho group is a force to be reckoned with. Major tech giants should work on plugging their security loopholes, in order to ensure the security of the end users’ data.