The malware infection triggered a massive cleanup operation within Belgacom, which has since renamed itself Proximus. The covert operation was the first documented example of a European Union member state hacking the critical infrastructure of another. In an eavesdropping mission called “Operation Socialist,” GCHQ planted bugs inside the most sensitive parts of Belgacom’s networks and tapped into communications processed by the company. The British spies hacked into Belgacom employees’ computers and then penetrated the company’s internal systems.
surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters, better known as GCHQ. On closer inspection, they made a startling discovery: Belgacom’s internal computer systems had been infected with one of the most advanced pieces of malware security experts had ever seen.Īs The Intercept reported in 2014, the hack turned out to have been perpetrated by U.K. The company’s employees had noticed their email accounts were not receiving messages. The hack had targeted Belgacom, Belgium’s largest telecommunications provider, which serves millions of people across Europe.
But it would soon become clear that they were chasing ghosts – fake names that had been invented by British spies. They believed they were on the trail of the people responsible. It was the summer of 2013, and European investigators were looking into an unprecedented breach of Belgium’s telecommunications infrastructure. For a moment, it seemed the hackers had slipped up and exposed their identities.
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