Kaspersky Lab has detected what's it's calling a "new advanced cyber threat" that is designed to perform cyber espionage and steal valuable information.
The malware, called Worm.Win32.Flame or "Flame" for short, exhibits a complexity and functionality that exceeds those "of all other cyber menaces known to date," the firm wrote on a blog entry on Monday.
[More from Mashable: Did Yahoo Rush Axis Out the Door Before It Was Ready?]
The malware, discovered by the Lab’s experts during a probe prompted by the International Telecommunication Union, has been "in the wild" since 2010, but has eluded all security programs because of its complexity.
Kaspersky compared Flame to [Stuxnet](http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/fbi-hackers-terrorists/) and [Duqu](http://mashable.com/2011/11/02/duqu-microsoft/), other cyberweapons that appear to be designed to steal information. Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, wrote in on Kaspersky's blog that, while those cyberweapons were part of a single chain of attacks, "the Flame malware looks to be another phase in this war, and it’s important to understand that such cyber weapons can easily be used against any country. Unlike with conventional warfare, the more developed countries are actually the most vulnerable in this case.”
[More from Mashable: Anonymous Hacks Department of Justice]
The Lab is tasking a team of experts with analyzing Flame, which it believes to be 20 times larger than Stuxnet.
Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, PashaIgnatov
This story originally published on Mashable here.
No comments:
Post a Comment