Welcome to the new frontier of cyber-espionage, and remember this name: ‘Flame’ — a mysterious new cyber spy tool that hit the headlines on Monday, May 28. Its code is 20 times larger than Stuxnet, the mysterious computer worm that temporarily crippled Iran’s Siemens nuclear centrifuges, and it ‘might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed’ according to Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based cybersecurity firm. Kaspersky published the findings of its analysis on Monday in addition to the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Budapest University. Most of the infected systems are located in the Middle East, with Iran, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, and Hungary topping the list. Flame stands out in the various ways through which it ‘exfiltrates’ data, including surreptitiously recorded audio data captured by internal microphones. However, unlike Stuxnet, Flame was designed to spy — not destroy.

The variety of spy tools that Flame employs is astonishing. According to Kaspersky, ‘of course, other malware exists which can record audio, but key here is Flame’s completeness — the ability to steal data in so many different ways.’ It also takes snapshots of instant messages and records a user’s keystrokes. Flame is remotely controlled through a command and […]