Dan McWhorter, vice president of FireEye for Threat Intelligence, wrote in a blog post Tuesday that some malicious programs created in Russia to steal private information from businesses and foreign governments were supported by the Russian government.

The programmers that wrote codes for malware, or malicious software, have been identified as APT28. The group is reported to have links to a "government sponsor based in Moscow," according to McWhorter. He added the group has been targeting "privileged information related to governments, militaries and security organizations" for at least seven years.

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Computer viruses and malicious programs have been problems since the creation of the personal computer, according to CNET's Seth Rosenblatt, but government-sponsored malware is still uncommon.

Stuxnet, one of the best-known government-based malware, was used by the United States to target Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities back in 2005.

Mikko Hypponen, a security analyst at F-Secure with decades of experience, told CNET in February that government-sponsored malware is rare and only a few countries are actively making malicious codes.

It's not the first time Russia has been accused of using malware to spy on businesses or foreign governments. The Russian government was recently accused of creating the "Uroboros" malware by the German security company, GData.

Although FireEye's analysts offered a glimpse into the cyber-espionage strategies of Russia, they found no direct evidence linking the country's government to any incidents or specific malware.

FireEye said the code behind the program demonstrated its writers knew how to speak Russian, and worked on the malware during the "business hours" in the time zones of prominent cities in Russia, such as St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Tagsinternet security, Russian hackers, Russia, Malware, Malicious programs, Russian government, cyber espionage, Internet spying, Security, Virus