Flame was developed by the NSA, CIA, and Israeli military, according to a report.



According to the Washington Post, the United States and Israel jointly developed the Flame espionage malware to collect information that would be useful in disrupting Iran's nuclear program.

Following the stories about the highly complex 'Flame' malware that targeted Iranian computers and its posterior 'suicide' command, now there are clearer reports about its origin.

According to the Washington Post, the US and Israel cooperated to create the malware in order to attack Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The confirmation, from anonymous Western officials, links Flame to the Stuxnet cyberweapon that the US and Israel used to target Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009.

The Post reports that the effort involved the NSA, CIA, and Israeli military, and that it was developed at least five years ago under the classified code-name "Olympic Games."
This connection had been previously speculated, as researchers recently discovered a "missing link" of code between Flame and Stuxnet, which suggested the malware was developed by the same author.

Codenamed "Worm.Win32.Flame," the malware has been described as "one of the most complex threats ever discovered" and infected thousands of computers, primarily in Iran and Israel. Here's what the malware was able to do:

Flame was a highly stealthy rootkit that used the work of world-class cryptographers and mathematicians to spread from machine to machine, even on hardened networks.

After infecting a system, it manipulated microphones, cameras, and Bluetooth functions to spy on people in the immediate vicinity. It was also able to cross "air-gapped" networks which aren't connected to the Internet by stashing interception communication on USB drives.

While other espionage programs have many of the same capabilities, Flame's sophistication was the ability to bundle all of this together in a 20-megabyte collection of binaries that worked seamlessly.
NEWS SOURCE #1: US Israel Flame Malware Iiran (via) TheVerge
NEWS SOURCE #2: US Israel developed computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts officials say (via) WashingtonPost

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!