FLAME - MALWARE

FLAME

Flame is the most complex malware ever found. Researchers named the malware as “Flame” after the name of one of its module. It also known as Flamer and skywiper. It is a computer malware discovered in 2012 which attacks computers running the Microsoft Windows OS. It is being used to monitor Cyber Espionage in Middle Eastern countries. Its discovery was announced on 28 May 2012 by Maher Centre of  Iranina National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), Kaspersky lab and CrySyS lab of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Flame can spread to other systems over a local network (LAN) or via USB stick. It can record audio, screenshots, keyboard activity and network traffic. The program also records Skype conversations and can turn infected computers into Bluetooth beacons which attempt to download contact information from nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices. This data, along with locally stored documents, is sent on to one of several command and control servers that are scattered around the world. The program then awaits further instructions from these servers.

Flame had initially infected approximately 1000 machines with victims including Govt. organizations, educational institutions and pvt. Individuals. Infections happened in Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt with major target in Iran. Flame supports a "kill" command which wipes all traces of the malware from the computer. The initial infections of Flame stopped operating after its public exposure, and the "kill" command was sent.

Researchers guess that Flame is related with Stuxnet(another computer worm) These two worms have different usage of codes and must be developed by different group of hackers. But researchers are sure that these two worms share atleast one module of code and there is a strong relationship between Flame and Stuxnet.

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