Cybersecurity

BAE Uses Cyber Skills Developed in British Intelligence Services to Help Clients

In January, BAE Systems Plc got a routine call from a new client: The health-care company’s computer systems were mysteriously crashing. BAE’s sleuths soon discovered a dangerous new strain of a virus called Qbot.

Using skills honed via years of work for British intelligence services, BAE’s cyber specialists traced the worm to a shadowy Russian-speaking criminal network. It had infected more than 54,000 computers worldwide, mostly in the U.S., stealing usernames and passwords from targets such as hospitals, universities, police departments and big banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

“Working out the motivation behind an attack is more an art than a science,” said Adrian Nish, BAE’s head of cyberthreat intelligence. “It was criminal. They were looking to monetize the attack.”

As Europe’s largest defense company, BAE is better known for producing Typhoon fighter jets and nuclear-powered submarines than battling computer viruses. Yet in the past decade, it has developed its cyber-security chops as one of the biggest suppliers of threat intelligence to the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s counterpart to the U.S. National Security Agency.