Sophisticated 'Flame' super-virus found to have infected thousands of region's computers

Dubai: A sophisticated computer virus, 20 times more powerful than any known cyber warfare programme, including the Stuxnet virus, was uncovered in the Middle East Tuesday by Kasperky Labs' experts during an investigation prompted by the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The complexity and functionality of the malicious program exceeds that of all other cyber threats known to date.

Kaspersky Labs said the programme, called Flame, which infects Microsoft Windows computers, appears to have been released five years ago and has infected machines in Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"Flame can easily be described as one of the most complex threats ever discovered," Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Labs. "It's big and incredibly sophisticated. It pretty much redefines the notion of cyberwar and cyber-espionage."

Flame on thousands of PCs across the Middle East

Kaspersky researchers said they had detected Flame on thousands of PCs belonging to individuals, private companies and universities across the Middle East. Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on computer microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and copy instant messaging chats.

Flame is the third major internet weapon to have been discovered since 2010. The Stuxnet virus attacked Iran's nuclear programme in 2010, causing centrifuges in its uranium enrichment facility at Bushehr to fail just weeks before they were due to start up.

The second virus, Duqu, like Flame, was a reconnaissance programme. Security researchers believe Duqu was created by the same group of programmers behind Stuxnet. It contains 20 times more code than Stuxnet and is much more widespread than Duqu. Researchers believe Duqu hit fewer than 50 targets worldwide.

'We do not know who is behind the virus'

James Lyne, director of technology strategy, Sophos, said: "We do not know who is behind the virus, but given its complexity and the geography of its targets, they said it was most likely being staged by a government. The authors of Stuxnet and Duqu are also unknown.

Kaspersky Labs said the majority of computers infected with Flame were in Iran. Like Duqu and Stuxnet, Flame infected machines through a known security hole in the Windows operating software.

Lyne said the virus was extremely invasive. It could "vacuum up" information by copying keyboard strokes and the voices of people nearby.

'Dedicated to stealing data'

"It is large, complicated and dedicated to stealing data whilst remaining hidden for a long time," he said.

He said there was evid-ence to suggest the code was commissioned by the same nation or nations that were behind Stuxnet and Duqu.