Last month Kaspersky Lab declared that it has discovered a potent and intricate malicious software that is being used as a cyber weapon to attack some specific countries- the “Flame,” short for Worm.Win32.
The security developer reports that Flame is a sophisticated attack toolkit and acts as a backdoor, a Trojan, and has worm-like features allowing it to replicate in a local network and on removable media if it is commanded so by its master.This malware steals top secret information such as emails, audio recordings, photos, documents, messages, and discussions from infected computers. The captured information is sent to a network of command-and-control servers located in many different parts of the world.
The malware was discovered by Kaspersky Lab’s experts during an investigation prompted by the ITU. It was first detected after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) asked Kaspersky to investigate a series of incidents with related to another, equally destructive malware called “Wiper.” When Flame was instead discovered, it was later found out that it has been “in the wild” for over two years. Its relative programming complexity helped it to hide from most antivirus applications.
