© 2024
NPR News, Colorado Stories
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Looking to enter the cycling tour contest for Fall Drive? Contest ends at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 9. Click here for details.

Virus Infects Computers Throughout Middle East

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR business news starts with a new cyber threat.

Researchers have discovered what they are calling the largest cyber weapon ever unleashed.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

It's called Flame, and it's been infecting computers throughout the Middle East - in Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and especially, Iran. Analysts describe it as an attack toolkit that conceals itself in massive amounts of code and gathers all kinds of information.

GREENE: It can take screenshots, it can monitor keystrokes, follow network traffic and remotely turn on computer microphones to record conversations. Unlike other viruses, Flame targets computers belonging to specific individuals, companies and universities.

MONTAGNE: Computer security researchers in Moscow discovered it while doing an investigation for an U.N. agency about reports of a new virus outbreak. They believe a government is behind Flame, because only a nation-state would have the budget and bandwidth to sift through all that stolen data. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Related Content
  • The prospect of losing may well discourage Iran from launching a direct cyberattack on the United States. But having a cyber arsenal for deterrent purposes would not necessarily preclude Iran from sharing those weapons with groups less hesitant to use them, security experts say.
  • For the top brass of companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, talk of cyberweapons and cyberwar could be abstract. But at a classified security briefing in spring 2010, it suddenly became quite real. "We can turn your computer into a brick," government officials reportedly told the startled executives.