Key details about the attack have remained shrouded in mystery-and the scope of the attack unclear. The full story about GCHQ’s infiltration of Belgacom, however, has never been told. And in November, The Intercept revealed that the malware found on Belgacom’s systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers, who named it “Regin.” Last year, documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters was behind the attack, codenamed Operation Socialist. The computer systems of Belgacom had been infected with a highly sophisticated malware, and it was disguising itself as legitimate Microsoft software while quietly stealing data. But it wasn’t until a year later, in June 2013, that the company’s security experts were able to figure out what was going on. It was in the summer of 2012 that the anomalies were initially detected by employees at Belgium’s largest telecommunications provider, Belgacom. And the perpetrators were British government spies. Inside a row of gray office buildings in Brussels, a major hacking attack was in progress. But it would eventually become clear that this was no routine technical problem. When the incoming emails stopped arriving, it seemed innocuous at first.
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