‘Mass surveillance’ spyware blamed on a government

The Irish branch of a global online security corporation helped to identify a sophisticated spying operation believed to have been organised by a foreign government.

Given the scale and duration of the surveillance, experts from Symantec believe there are only a handful of governments capable to orchestrating it.

Computer scientists from Symantec Ireland identified a company here that was subject to a concerted cyberattack for years. The company — which is not being named — accounted for 10% of the 100 or so computers worldwide infected by the spyware, codenamed Regin.