Researchers have presented data about a cyber-espionage campaign they named OilRig, targeting Saudi Arabian financial institutions and technology organizations, which appears to have taken aim at the country's defense industry as well, but at a different time last year.

The most recent waves of attacks were recorded in May 2016 and seem to have ties with a broader campaign targeting a large number of banks across the Middle East, which is using malicious Excel files and on which we reported at the start of last week. Expert says the crooks used two different delivery methods to deploy a backdoor named Helminth. 

Regin's complex nature suggests a nation state is behind the cyberespionage tool's development, Symantec reports. An advanced piece of malware has been uncovered, which has been in use as far back as 2008 to spy on governments, companies and individuals.

The cyberespionage tool uses several stealth features to avoid detection that required a significant investment of time and resources, suggesting it's the product of a nation state, the antivirus software maker warned, without suggesting which country was behind it. The malware's design makes it highly suited for long-term mass surveillance. Other infections were identified monitoring network traffic and analyzing email from Exchange databases.