I am writing to J.K. Rowling for recommendation for a good owl.

For mac and windows?

It doesn't take a national effort to write code like this. A single educated and determined author could do this in a few years. I bet the group that authored this is <10. Praise be to the amazing library of open source software one determined foe is like 10,000 authors.

This reminds me - remember those anonymous guys? Whatever happened to them? Hard to be mischievous from a prison cell I guess.

Maybe they all got flamed.

If this secret "Flame" code has been detected, how did they get the source code for it? The article shows source code. Unless Kaspersky wrote it they could only see the object (compiled) code. Something seems fishy here.. or at least worm like. :-)

@ pres68y, Kaspersky 'got' stuxnet and duqu as well. They seem to be the only antiviral/antimalware company exposing these threats. This flame, from kaspersly's own blog seems older. I share your skepticism.

The total number of targets is an estimated 600.

"It doesn't take a national effort to write code like this" - Foofie la poofie

Do it up yourself ace. Iknow, you pathetic bastard, you have a -tard for me. Think about this before you respond. You like these internets. You use them. That's all. Are you going to 6 or 7 in your name calling today?

Multi-potential-exploits.

So an A/V company has a penchant for discovering malware and tomfoolery where nobody else has?

Totally not suspicious at all.

Oh, you can trust them. They're from Russia after all.. ;-)

Not even a hint of which state it might be? Probably not a state at all, but a country! Why would Montana (for example) do such a thing? California maybe. It sounds a bit too well executed to be the US. Chiner? Most likely, eh?

This reminds me - remember those anonymous guys?

They seem to be alive and well (and active). But their internet pranks are far less sophisticated than what is reported here. This is probably one reason why they say it has to be state sponsored. Anonymous, no doubt, comprises smart hackers - but this is way beyond anything that they have fielded.

Not even a hint of which state it might be?

China? Russia? the US? Those would be my three guesses. (Though I'm not sure why the US would want to infiltrate Israel. (But that part of the news may be a ruse - so who knows?)

how did they get the source code for it?

From what I read they disassembled it.

So an A/V company has a penchant for discovering malware

Counterquestion: who else? Would you feel more confident if a state agency released these news? And why would they? First rule of spying: if you know someone is spying: don't tell them you found them!

Praise be to the amazing library of open source software one determined foe is like 10,000 authors.

Ad hominem against open source? Needless to say (to most people), overwhelming amounts of good have come from it. This WWW, for instance.

...how did they get the source code for it? The article shows source code.

I understand you were being a little 'tongue in cheek' about this, but anyway, the source shown is a bit of LUA script and the article explains that Flame has LUA support. So the code shown will have already been in source form (a script), possibly encrypted, maybe even as plain text.

You're right...just checked the documentation for the LUA scripting language and that does indeed look like it.

F.l.a.m.e.

Furious Lover Against Middle East

I guess :)

China? Russia? the US? Those would be my three guesses. (Though I'm not sure why the US would want to infiltrate Israel. (But that part of the news may be a ruse - so who knows?)

Agreed. And of these, I don't think China cares what's going on in the Middle East. Russia is trying to be non-aversive against them. So that leaves the U.S.

The U.S. have a long and persistent history of espionage and covert operations. Their three-letter bureaus have easily the resources. No other country harbors enough interest in some men walking around in sand in their bathrobes. -- Except Israel.

While I have nothing against the Jews I know, I really think Israel as a country certainly is ruthless, remorseless, unscrupulous and has the technology and human resources for this kind of activity. And, they certainly would use Flame "against themselves" as a ruse. No question.

Why Kaspersky? Because they're not afraid of a half-dozen black SUVs arriving, they know Yanks wouldn't dare inside Russia.

While I have nothing against the Jews I know, I really think Israel as a country certainly is ruthless, remorseless, unscrupulous and has the technology and human resources for this kind of activity. And, they certainly would use Flame "against themselves" as a ruse. No question.

Count yourself lucky that you didn't get any thing more explosively damaging than a 1 rating on P.O when you question the sanctity of God's chosen representative.

Anonymous, no doubt, comprises smart hackers - but this is way beyond anything that they have fielded.

Anonymous is an idea not a group which you can say what it comprises of, anyone can be anonymous.
Also smart hackers? Most of these people are wannabe script kiddies. Sure they are "smarter" than the average person and there might be a small group of people who actually know what they are doing and program a few tools.
That is how the amateur "hacker" scene works on the internet anyway. I wrote a few tools for "hacker" forums myself. Also made a few trojans to spy on some people, hacker a few games that were packed and virtualized. Its not that hard to do for a real computer scientist but most of them aren't and have no clue about anything.

Seems I was right, if we assume Stuxnet and Flame are from the same source, which makes sense.

PhysOrg writes it was the U.S. and Israel, together.

Anonymous is an idea not a group which you can say what it comprises of, anyone can be anonymous.

No, most likely it was a funnel for enticing troublemakers (like you maybe?) and getting them to expose themselves so they could be neutralized and/or put to good use while learning a great deal about offense and defense. This is only prudent.

Anonymous is an idea not a group which you can say what it comprises of, anyone can be anonymous.

No, most likely it was a funnel for enticing troublemakers (like you maybe?) and getting them to expose themselves so they could be neutralized and/or put to good use while learning a great deal about offense and defense. This is only prudent.

And what makes you think i am a trouble maker?
Anonymous are mostly amateurs, people who can actually write hacking tools dont easily go to such people.
Its common sense that these kinds of places are monitored actively by FBI and CIA.