From the BBC:
This new threat appears not to cause physical damage, but to collect huge amounts of sensitive information, said
[Russian security firm] Kaspersky's
[Labs] chief malware expert Vitaly Kamluk.
"Once a system is infected, Flame begins a complex set of operations, including sniffing the network traffic, taking screenshots, recording audio conversations, intercepting the keyboard, and so on," he said.
More than 600 specific targets were hit, Mr Kamluk said, ranging from individuals, businesses, academic institutions and government systems....
Among the countries affected by the attack are Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
"The geography of the targets and also the complexity of the threat leaves no doubt about it being a nation-state that sponsored the research that went into it," Mr Kamluk said.If this is a nation-sponsored attack, the question is which nation has the most to gain from gathering all of this intelligence? One can safely assume that the malware code does not have a line saying "Made in USA" or "Made in China." Looking at the list of countries affected, only two... Iran and Israel... would be likely targets for technology information. The other countries are buyers of technology, not developers. So, one can safely assume that technology secrets are not the primary targets of this malware.
What is more likely is that military and terrorist operations are the targets. Some nation really wants to infiltrate the inner workings of the political/military apparatuses in these countries.
I'll give you three guesses... three different guesses.
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