Powerful ‘Flame’ cyberweapon torching Mideast computers

The most sophisticated and powerful cyberweapon to date -- a Swiss Army Knife spy tool that can evolve and change to deal with any situation -- has been discovered on the loose in several Middle Eastern countries, security researchers said Tuesday.

The Worm.Win32.Flame threat, or “Flame” for short, was likely built by the same nation-state responsible for the Stuxnet virus that targeted Iran’s nuclear power plant in 2010.

But this new weapon is twenty times the size of that cyberbomb and far more powerful, making it practically an army on its own, said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior security researcher with Kaspersky Labs.

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