‘Flame trojan also targeted Iran’s nuclear program’

Like Stuxnet, the recently discovered Flame virus was created by the United States and Israel and targets Iran’s nuclear program. That writes an American newspaper. Flame would have been used for espionage.

The Flame virus is said to have been used to map Iranian computer networks and send back the data, in order to prepare for a ‘cyber warfare campaign’. That writes the renowned American newspaper The Washington Post on the basis of unnamed ‘officials’.

The American intelligence services NSA and CIA are said to be behind the development of the espionage virus together with the Israeli army; it was part of the same program as Stuxnet development, according to The Washington Post. Recently The New York Times revealed that Israel and the United States were behind Stuxnet, which has long been suspected.

Flame could activate microphones and webcams, function as a keylogger, take screenshots and receive commands via Bluetooth, among other things. Unlike Flame, Stuxnet was used to actually sabotage the Iranian nuclear program by disrupting centrifuges in nuclear installations. Kaspersky previously discovered a connection between the two trojans.

The existence of the Flame virus came to light at the end of last month after IT security Kaspersky had analyzed the virus. Perhaps the company was approached by Iran. The Flame virus, which would have been deployed since 2010, would have betrayed its existence when it was deployed by Israel to the Iranian oil ministry. The United States would not have been aware of this, writes The Washington Post.