Blame game for cyberattacks grows murkier as spying, crime tools mix

The Moldovan hacker's campaign to steal data and resell it on the web came to light only after infections popped up last year at a major airline, an online gambling firm and a Chinese automotive software maker.

TALLINN, Estonia: Veteran espionage researcher Jon DiMaggio was hot on the trail three months ago of what on the face of it looked like a menacing new industrial espionage attack by Russian cyber spies. 

All the hallmarks were there: targeted phishing e-mails common to government espionage, an advanced Trojan horse for stealing data from inside organisations, covert communication channels for grabbing documents and clues in the programming code indicating its authors were Russian speakers.