The Flame computer virus detection made a lot of noise. It turned out that it was created not by ordinary virus creators, but by specialists from the military departments. This Trojan was actively used as a cyber weapon against a number of Middle Eastern countries.
The Flame computer virus was discovered by Roel Schuwenberg, a computer security specialist at Kaspersky Lab. The malicious program is capable of collecting information, changing computer settings, taking screenshots, recording sound, and connecting to chats. The Washington Post, citing unnamed Western officials, reported that the Flame was developed by US and Israeli experts. The main purpose of the creation of the virus was to obtain the information necessary to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program. According to journalists, the Trojan program was developed as part of the Olympic Games program, which has already become famous for the Stuxnet virus. The virus has become widely known for its destructive activities at the Iranian uranium enrichment center in Natanz.
Flame was discovered after a cyberattack on Iranian oil refineries. According to some reports, this attack was carried out by Israeli experts without consulting their counterparts from the United States, which caused great discontent among the latter. They can be understood - it became known about the virus, it was investigated by specialists of antivirus companies. Nevertheless, the virus is still very dangerous; effective ways to combat it have not yet been found. According to Kaspersky Lab experts, it can take up to ten years to fully decrypt a virus. Such a long period is explained by the size of the Trojan - it "weighs" about twenty megabytes, which is simply enormous for a virus.
By its structure, the malicious program is a set of tools for carrying out attacks on remote computers. First, the basic block of the Trojan program is injected onto the enemy's computer, after which up to twenty additional modules that carry out specific spyware functions can be loaded. The program can intercept network traffic, track keystrokes, record sound from a microphone. One of the virus modules is able to connect via Bluetooth to cell phones in the vicinity of the infected computer and download all information from them.
Prior to its detection, the virus managed to infect more than six hundred computers, most of the attacks were carried out on objects in the Middle East. In particular, Flame was used against Iran, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt.
