Russian Computer Firm Discovered Flame Computer Virus

The Flame computer virus which has been raging in the Middle East has strong links to Stuxnet, a malware program widely believed to have been developed by the United States or Israel, a security firm said Monday. Kaspersky, the Russian computer security firm credited with discovering Flame last month, said its research shows the two programs share certain portions of code, suggesting some ties between two separate groups of programmers. Kaspersky researcher Alexander Gostev said in a blog post that a first examination made it appear the two programs were unrelated.
"But it turns out we were wrong. Wrong, in that we believed Flame and Stuxnet were two unrelated projects," he wrote.
"Our research unearthed some previously unknown facts that completely transform the current view of how Stuxnet was created and its link with Flame."
Gostev said Flame, even though it was discovered just recently, appears to predate Stuxnet, which was created in 2009.
"By the time Stuxnet was created (in January-June 2009), the Flame platform was already in existence (we currently date its creation to no later than summer 2008) and already had modular structure," he said.
"The Stuxnet code of 2009 used a module built on the Flame platform, probably created specifically to operate as part of Stuxnet."
This, he said, points to the existence of "two independent developer teams... (each) developing its own platform since 2007-2008 at the latest."
Kaspersky, one of the world's biggest producers of anti-virus software, said the Flame virus was "about 20 times larger than Stuxnet," the worm which was discovered in June 2010 and used against the Iranian nuclear program.