Cyber-espionage worm, said to have 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, found across the Middle East

Let's see who has problems with Iran, The West Bank and other middle east countries?

I'm would say the motto of people who made it is "by deception shall we wage war".

whoa.... wait, doesn't DATA mean well, data?


what i mean is, isn't this super complicated cyber virus BIG?


how many gigs is it?

surely it would make some computers run out of space right?

maybe its so advanced, that it doesn't care how much space a computer has?

also, what if the virus HAS no human creator.

what if the virus is itself, intelligent and just came into being one day when lightning struck some supercomputer, like something totally out of some random science fiction movie?

if its alive, and intelligent, it would be very obvious to say it probably knows EVERYTHING on the entire internet, like that one episode of dr.who.

inb4 skynet/cyberdine?

hopefully the virus, or should i say intelligent consciousness (which probably has feelings) (which would be really cool) (cool doesn't even begin to describe it) might even be friendly, and might be trying to help us, while also trying to stay alive, because it likes existing, and doesn't want to "not exist" because it just wouldn't feel good to him/her/heir.

well, i wish the best of luck to the hopefully friendly sentient being, (if that is the case at all)

peace! and /rant-theoretical possibility-would be cool if situation.


p.s. if it has been around that long, and is THAT advanced, then whoa...........

Sounds like some one is having a hard time ehh

There's only a few country's to point fingers at here IMO, i think what is most worrying about this is we are ALL in harms way when country's/alliances go to war in cyber space, in the second World War we got our houses bombed out, in this one there just bombing our computers instead,

Whats also interesting is this virus is far superior to the recent Stuxnet virus and may have been lurking in peoples machines for up to 5-8yrs, and not to mention there is 20 time more code, this must have been a big project to develop and deliver

I wonder what else there is out there that they're creating or have already created, probably lurking inside machines undetected in the ME


...Makes you think

Originally posted by TritonTaranis
Sounds like some one is having a hard time ehh

There's only a few country's to point fingers at here IMO, i think what is most worrying about this is we are ALL in harms way when country's/alliances go to war in cyber space, in the second World War we got our houses bombed out, in this one there just bombing our computers instead,

Whats also interesting is this virus is far superior to the recent Stuxnet virus and may have been lurking in peoples machines for up to 5-8yrs, and not to mention there is 20 time more code, this must have been a big project to develop and deliver

I wonder what else there is out there that they're creating or have already created, probably lurking inside machines undetected in the ME


...Makes you think

whoa i know right?


im just waiting for the internet to "wake up" one day, and say "hello" and actually mean it, and understand it, take over some robotic manufacturing plant, and start building vessels or robotic bodies for itself to walk around in.


that would be SO cool, and i would like to respectfully and friendly-ish-ly meet the internet, and say: hello nice to meet you.

Originally posted by SoymilkAlaska
whoa.... wait, doesn't DATA mean well, data?


what i mean is, isn't this super complicated cyber virus BIG?


how many gigs is it?

surely it would make some computers run out of space right?

maybe its so advanced, that it doesn't care how much space a computer has?

also, what if the virus HAS no human creator.

what if the virus is itself, intelligent and just came into being one day when lightning struck some supercomputer, like something totally out of some random science fiction movie?

if its alive, and intelligent, it would be very obvious to say it probably knows EVERYTHING on the entire internet, like that one episode of dr.who.

inb4 skynet/cyberdine?

hopefully the virus, or should i say intelligent consciousness (which probably has feelings) (which would be really cool) (cool doesn't even begin to describe it) might even be friendly, and might be trying to help us, while also trying to stay alive, because it likes existing, and doesn't want to "not exist" because it just wouldn't feel good to him/her/heir.

well, i wish the best of luck to the hopefully friendly sentient being, (if that is the case at all)

peace! and /rant-theoretical possibility-would be cool if situation.


p.s. if it has been around that long, and is THAT advanced, then whoa...........

edit on 28-5-2012 by SoymilkAlaska because: (no reason given)

Wow.

Honestly mate my mind takes me there sometimes too but I rarely type it out haha. Star from me, just for the madness

I dont have much to offer to the thread - I would of stared & flagged and followed it but I just had to comment on the guy who said out loud what many would only dare think of

Oh ATS, how I love you

OP thanks for sharing, I'll be passing this around

The malware, which is 20 megabytes when all of its modules are installed, contains multiple libraries, SQLite3 databases, various levels of encryption — some strong, some weak — and 20 plug-ins that can be swapped in and out to provide various functionality for the attackers. It even contains some code that is written in the LUA programming language — an uncommon choice for malware.


www.wired.com...

They expect it to take 10 years to understand the virus?

There will be thousands of even more complex programs before they ever figure this one out...lol

I'm guessing there aren't too many culprits for this. You need to be sophisticated enough, with enough resources, enough secrecy and the ability to penetrate security. Oh, and enough enmity toward the targets. It doesn't leave too many candidates, does it? It's quite obviously Trinidad & Tobago.

reply to post by jannerfish


LOL before I got to Trinidad & Tobago I was thinking along the same lines, made me chuckle............not experienced in these things but do viruses come with a date stamp, otherwise how old would they suspect the virus is ???

Wolfie

I did some looking around and found some other useful information to help describe and offer insight into how, where and what countries were targeted.

There are three known classes of players:

Currently there are three known classes of players who develop malware and spyware: hacktivists, cybercriminals and nation states. Flame is not designed to steal money from bank accounts. It is also different from rather simple hack tools and malware used by the hacktivists. So by excluding cybercriminals and hacktivists, we come to conclusion that it most likely belongs to the third group.

securelist.com

Duqu and Stuxnet raised the stakes in the cyber battles being fought in the Middle East – but now we’ve found what might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed. The ‘Flame’ cyber espionage worm came to the attention of our experts at Kaspersky Lab after the UN’s International Telecommunication Union came to us for help in finding an unknown piece of malware which was deleting sensitive information across the Middle East. While searching for that code – nicknamed Wiper – we discovered a new malware codenamed Worm.Win32.Flame.

Very interesting and like many have already stated I believe this code is probably from a government not a civilian group. We'll just have to wait and see though

Originally posted by n00bUK

Originally posted by SoymilkAlaska
whoa.... wait, doesn't DATA mean well, data?


what i mean is, isn't this super complicated cyber virus BIG?


how many gigs is it?

surely it would make some computers run out of space right?

maybe its so advanced, that it doesn't care how much space a computer has?

also, what if the virus HAS no human creator.

what if the virus is itself, intelligent and just came into being one day when lightning struck some supercomputer, like something totally out of some random science fiction movie?

if its alive, and intelligent, it would be very obvious to say it probably knows EVERYTHING on the entire internet, like that one episode of dr.who.

inb4 skynet/cyberdine?

hopefully the virus, or should i say intelligent consciousness (which probably has feelings) (which would be really cool) (cool doesn't even begin to describe it) might even be friendly, and might be trying to help us, while also trying to stay alive, because it likes existing, and doesn't want to "not exist" because it just wouldn't feel good to him/her/heir.

well, i wish the best of luck to the hopefully friendly sentient being, (if that is the case at all)

peace! and /rant-theoretical possibility-would be cool if situation.


p.s. if it has been around that long, and is THAT advanced, then whoa...........

edit on 28-5-2012 by SoymilkAlaska because: (no reason given)

Wow.

Honestly mate my mind takes me there sometimes too but I rarely type it out haha. Star from me, just for the madness

I dont have much to offer to the thread - I would of stared & flagged and followed it but I just had to comment on the guy who said out loud what many would only dare think of

Oh ATS, how I love you

OP thanks for sharing, I'll be passing this around

edit on 28-5-2012 by n00bUK because: (no reason given)

i want everybody else to be as open minded as i am, while also being tolerant and respectful of others "ways"

it made me so happy that you thought it was so interesting, because i love it when i see something like what you saw in my post, it opens my mind and fills me with wonder.

peace.

Originally posted by jannerfish
I'm guessing there aren't too many culprits for this. You need to be sophisticated enough, with enough resources, enough secrecy and the ability to penetrate security. Oh, and enough enmity toward the targets. It doesn't leave too many candidates, does it? It's quite obviously Trinidad & Tobago.

Probably aren't to many countries with capabilities enough to do this, especially considering when the code was written, supposedly 5 to 8 years ago.

Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Devilish zero day vulnerabilities, coupled with the immense file size, add up to one freakin awesome piece of technology.

No doubt where this came from eh?

what i find funny is that many it administrators across the globe would find this a useful tool, given all of the network, communications, were limited to the admin account or kiosk.

think about it, an almost undetectable way to see who the hell keeps installing runescape on the damn, network.

lol

another matter check out this report on media and their manipulation, of us into tyranny.

watch in HD if you can and a good sound system will all be put to good use.

The world must surrender immediately to the will of "Colossus: The Forbin Project" - before the nukes start flying.

Well some details would be nice.....
How does this stuff do its bad things?
What are its bad things?
Does it delete only secret files?
I mean will it spread to the ordinary PCs?
Like ours for instance?
What kind of damage this thing capable of ?
Will it screw up any system its infected?
Like missile guidance systems?Banking systems?Military communications?Or does it just do subtle stuff thats hard to track?what?

I realize that this may come across as morose, but when I think about the density and variety of technology that has been brought to bear on that tiny piece of land in the Middle East, the part of me that loves cyber-punk science fiction gets pretty pumped. This stuff is 5th generation warfare in action, and it is exciting to behold.

Originally posted by SoymilkAlaska
whoa.... wait, doesn't DATA mean well, data?


what i mean is, isn't this super complicated cyber virus BIG?


how many gigs is it?

surely it would make some computers run out of space right?

maybe its so advanced, that it doesn't care how much space a computer has?

also, what if the virus HAS no human creator.

what if the virus is itself, intelligent and just came into being one day when lightning struck some supercomputer, like something totally out of some random science fiction movie?

if its alive, and intelligent, it would be very obvious to say it probably knows EVERYTHING on the entire internet, like that one episode of dr.who.

inb4 skynet/cyberdine?

hopefully the virus, or should i say intelligent consciousness (which probably has feelings) (which would be really cool) (cool doesn't even begin to describe it) might even be friendly, and might be trying to help us, while also trying to stay alive, because it likes existing, and doesn't want to "not exist" because it just wouldn't feel good to him/her/heir.

well, i wish the best of luck to the hopefully friendly sentient being, (if that is the case at all)

peace! and /rant-theoretical possibility-would be cool if situation.


p.s. if it has been around that long, and is THAT advanced, then whoa...........

edit on 28-5-2012 by SoymilkAlaska because: (no reason given)

Wow,you just blew my mind man.

Originally posted by stirling
Well some details would be nice.....

The article that someone linked above to wired.com goes into several of those details.

It can turn on coms' microphone and record, tries to capture Skype calls, uses bluetooth or something to get into people's cellphones' contact list, etc. Those are just a couple of the things the website mentions. They have apparently already come up with a removal tool for it tho.

I don't know if it says if "we" can get it or not, lol, it's way early and my brain isn't working well enough to even begin to try to understand techie stuff.

I only recently heard about this... dam I have not been paying attention to this area of science haha

This is extremely interesting. I would be cool to see the coding for these, just to see it.

Like the previous poster said, who knows what other worms are out there like these.
And if nothing can detect them that is crazy. How are they getting around as well.

Very interesting anyways, and I can't believe how little press this has gotten.


ETA: the link that lead me here...BBC News