A new revelation threatens to sour the UK Government's relations with its European allies - according to German newspaper Der Speigel, the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spied on targeted individuals and telecom firms, including the Belgian telecoms company Belgacom, using a stealth technique called "Quantum Insert."
According to the newspaper, GCHQ had made fake LinkedIn and Slashdot pages that allowed it to plant surveillance malware on the computers and mobile devices of unsuspecting users.
The attack has already been detected and Edward Snowden's documents suggest that GCHQ is the source.
"We can locate, collect, exploit (in real time where appropriate) high-value mobile devices and services in a fully converged target centric manner," one document claimed.
This is how it works - the spyware is planted on fake or "cuckoo" versions of legitimate webpages, and they displays faster than the legitimate pages. When the unsuspecting user clicks on the fake page, the spyware installs stealthily and and goes to work, which can be anything from infiltrating the person's Gmail or Skype accounts to hacking into the billing systems of telecom providers and spy on the suspect's activities and movements.
The involvement of GCHQ's U.S. counterpart - the National Security Agency or NSA - has not been determined. However, Bruce Schneier, security expert and author of Liars & Outliers described the particulars of spyware and claims NSA does the same thing, on his blog.
"The NSA places secret servers, codenamed Quantum, key places on the Internet backbone," said Schneier. "This placement ensures that they can react faster than other websites can. By exploiting that speed difference, these servers can impersonate a visited website to the target before the legitimate website can respond, thereby tricking the target's brewer."
Both LinkedIn and Slashdot spokespersons said they were not aware of such practices.
"We were never told about this alleged activity and we would never approve of it, irrespective of what purpose it was used for," said the spokesman.
The latest revelation comes close on the heels of another claim that GCHQ had installed a 'listening post' on top of the British embassy in Berlin and NSA had tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and thousands of other people in Europe.
Over the weekend, an Iclandic politician also claimed the UK spied on officials negotiating over the collapse of the country's banks.
