Swiss prosecutors believe a number of computers used to negotiate the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran were infected with highly sophisticated malware.
“Investigations revealed that a significant number of computers at a hotel in Geneva had been infected with a form of malware,” a Swiss state prosecutor said in a statement Thursday.“This malware was developed for the purposes of espionage and is basically used to gather data from the computers infected.”
The hotel is believed to be the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva.
A Russian cyber-security firm, Kaspersky labs, which maintains known ties to the Kremlin, alleged Israel was behind a cyber attack on Iran deal hotels in June 2015. The firm, itself a target of a cyber attack, traced the code used against it to three luxury European hotels, including the Hotel President Wilson. U.S. officials knew Israel was spying on its discussions before the Iran deal was signed in 2014, the Wall Street Journal revealed in 2015.
U.S. officials were reportedly incensed with Israel, not necessarily for spying on the proceedings but for allegedly sharing the information with U.S. legislators opposed to the Iran deal. It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” a senior U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal in 2015.
Israeli officials denied the spying allegations. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly was forced to negotiate with his Iranian counterpart while walking outside to avoid foreign intelligence service’s attempts at eavesdropping.
Swiss officials decided to close the investigation into the spying allegations Thursday, after nearly a year of trying to find the source of the malware. Swiss authorities indicated to local media they would reopen the investigation if more evidence emerged.
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