Flame On

So today we heard about the Flame Virus, now infecting the Middle East and Iran.

What this demonstrates is how effective governments can be when they turn to cyberwar.  It puts the hack tools used by the likes of Anonymous far, far into the shade.

“The complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious programme exceed those of all other cyber menaces known to date.”   Boy howdy.

Flame is infecting computers mainly in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and the occupied territories.  It’s clearly an espionage weapon, and conducts surveillance rather than engages in destruction or sabotage.  It just sits in your computer and sucks up documents, media files, and screenshots.

Israel is not precisely denying that they’re behind Flame, but that isn’t necessarily conclusive.  They’d be happy to claim credit for the digital superweapon whether they were behind it or not.

But now that Flame’s secret is out, all sorts of entities are going to reverse-engineer the weapon and start using it on, well, everybody.  Whether they’re governments or not.  And whether their targets are governments or not.

Welcome to the future.  Flame on.