Cyberwar no joke

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Sunday, June 3, 2012

Its name is Flame — a sexy name for a rather clever computer virus that can snoop on computer users, listen in on Skype calls or even nearby office chatter, and eavesdrop on Bluetooth-enabled cellphones.

The fact that this virus — which experts describe as being unprecedented both in its size and sophistication — was inflicted on a number of Middle East countries, taking special aim at Iran, allows us here to find it all rather amusing.

We, of course, would be far less amused if the shoe were on the other foot.

It is widely believed that only four countries — the United States, Russia, China andIsrael — are capable of launching such a virus. And right now Israel isn’t exactly issuing any kind of denial.
year bravado in confirming the role of both nations itself poses risks.
Iran, as we learned by its efforts to target the Saudi ambassador to the United States for assassination, is not without its resources here. And it is not as bumbling in the area of cyber-warfare or cyber-security as we might like to portray it. After all,
it did eventually detect Flame — where it was found being used to monitor that nation’s oil industry — and manage to disarm it. (A blunder on the part of its originators eventually made Stuxnet detectable.)
It is believed that Flame has been at work since sometime in 2010 — although some experts say it may have been at work for the past five years. Whether this was espionage or sabotage also remains an open question.
Clearly we live in interesting — and scary — times. And while we can be bemused by this breach of cyber-security because this nation was not a target, it ought to remind us of our own vulnerabilities.Flame is apparently not as complex a virus as the Stuxnet, which sent Tehran’s uranium enriching centrifuges into a temporary tizzy — likely delaying for a time that nation’s quest for a nuclear weapon. This past week Obama administration officials acknowledged in not-for-attribution quotes to the New York Times [NYT] the roles played by the U.S. and Israel in that operation. That bit of election-