(
AP)
LONDON - A massive, data-slurping cyberweapon is circulating in the
Middle East, and computers in
Iran appear to have been particularly affected, according to a Russian Internet security firm.
Moscow-based
Kaspersky Lab ZAO said the "Flame" virus was unprecedented both in terms of its size and complexity, possessing the ability to turn infected computers into all-purpose spying machines that can even suck information out of nearby cell phones.
"This is on a completely different level," Kaspersky researcher Roel Schouwenberg said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It can be used to spy on everything that a user is doing."
The announcement sent a ripple of excitement across the computer security sector. Flame is the third major cyberweapon discovered in the past two years, and Kaspersky's conclusion that it was crafted at the behest of a national government fueled speculation that the virus could be part of an Israeli-backed campaign of electronic sabotage aimed at archrival Iran.
Although their coding is different, Schouwenberg said there was some evidence to suggest that the people behind Flame also helped craft Stuxnet, a notorious virus that disrupted controls of some nuclear centrifuges in Iran in 2010.
"Whoever was behind Flame had access to the same exploits and same vulnerabilities as the Stuxnet guys," he said, speculating that two teams may have been working in parallel to write both programs.
Stuxnet revolutionized the cybersecurity field because it targeted physical infrastructure rather than data, one of the first demonstrations of how savvy hackers can take control of industrial systems to wreak real-world havoc.
So far, Flame appears focused on espionage. The virus can activate a computer's audio systems to eavesdrop on
Skype calls or office chatter, for example. It can also take screenshots, log keystrokes, and - in one of its more novel functions - steal data from Bluetooth-enabled cell phones. ...