Kaspersky isn't explicitly naming the culprits, but it also isn't shy about pointing a finger in the US government's direction. The company notes that the developers had access to unpatched exploits before they showed up in American cyberwarfare viruses like Stuxnet, and in some cases directly borrowed code modules. Also, most of the infections have occurred in countries that are frequently US spying targets, such as China, Iran, Pakistan and Russia. Reuters sources back this up with claims that the NSA has developed espionage techniques on this level.

The NSA isn't commenting on the findings. However, they don't bode well for the US' attempts to preserve the eroding trust of other countries. If the US can plant surveillance tools in hard disks, why would you buy a hard drive (or an entire computer) from an American source to safeguard your big secrets? You probably won't have to worry about these bugged drives at home, but they're likely to be major concerns abroad.

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