WE'RE ALL GOING UP IN FLAMES

A month after a "malware attack" took an entire Iranian oil terminal offline, cyber-security group Kaspersky has  broken news of a new piece of malware called "Flame" that is "one of the most complex threats ever discovered". While they're still unsure who is behind the program (and may never find out without first being killed) there is quite a bit of information being released.
Read More at Securelist.com.

Some of the frightening facts:

• Flame is a huge package that access Bluetooth for nefarious purposes, take screenshots, monitor network data, log keystrokes and even record audio through microphones connected to the PC.
• It appears, due to its complexity and size and the fact that it is not interested in bank account information or general tomfoolery, that Flame is the creation of a nation state, such as the U.S., Britain, Israel, etc.
• Flame is mainly targeting 7 Middle Eastern countries: Iran, Israel/Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabi and Egypt.
• Flame may be related to the massive Stuxnet and Duqu malware that are basically Skynet 1.0.

Read More at Wired.com.

Virus interpretation by DROUET via Wikimedia Commons.

It's interesting that Israel is listed as one of the infected countries (though some people have indicated that only Palestinian computers were infected). This infection in Israel could be a ploy to draw attention away from them as culprits. 

Of course, most fingers are going to be pointing to the United States, as that's who is regularly mucking about in the Middle East and that's who has the biggest problem with Iran these days. This information gathering is likely the handiwork of the CIA and possibly the NSA in an attempt to more closely monitor Iran's nuclear progress.