By Neal Ungerleider | May 29, 2012 | Fast Company
Flame can listen in on Skype conversations, record keystrokes, steal files, and hack a smartphone’s call records. Here’s how it works–and how Flame evaded detection for years.
The news from cybersecurity researchers this Memorial Day sounded like a plot device from a science fiction movie. A hyper-secret surveillance program laid dormant on computers around the world for years, secretly turning on microphones, taking screenshots, copying files, recording keystrokes, fiddling with Bluetooth, and sending all the information off to unknown parties. Following an investigation request by the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union, the discovery of Flame–the world’s most sophisticated known weapon of cyberwar–was made public. Many of the infected computers belonged to deliberately targeted home users; the exquisitely crafted software escaped evasion by the world’s best antivirus software suites for years.
John Malcolm 