A complete guide to Flame, the malicious computer virus ravaging Iran

By Rebecca Greenfield

May 30, 2012

Iran has acknowledged that Flame, what some have called the most sophisticated cyber espionage weapon yet, has infected computers across the country. "Having conducted multiple investigations during the last few months, the Maher center, the Iranian CERTCC, following the continuous research on the targeted attacks of Stuxnet and Duqu since 2010, announces the latest detection of this attack for the very first time," reads the official statement. That all sounds scary, but perhaps, like us, you're not exactly sure what it all means. Cyber-warfare, as far as wars go, is pretty abstract. Let's talk this one out.

Ok, so let's start from the beginning. What does this virus do exactly?

Per the Iranian statement, once it has infected a computer the virus can do the following nefarious things: collect passwords, take screengrabs of important processes or active windows, record sounds happening via Skype or even around the computer, transfer any data it has to control servers, bypass anti malware and other security software, and infect "large scale local networks," meaning, it's far reaching.

How far reaching, exactly?

From most infected to least infected, it has reached Iran, parts of Israel and Palestinian territories, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.