All of the articles I've read say it's been in the wild since 2010, and has to date only been found in the middle-east. I am not naïve enough to think it will remain there forever, but it certainly doesn't seem to even attempt to spread outside of that area or be a threat to us. We've had much greater threats than this in the past. Now that it has been discovered and widely publicized, the other AV companies will include signatures and soon the threat (to us) will be largely moot. (I suppose the Dubai campus may be at some increased risk.) There are real risks to our users every day; I wouldn't consider Flame one of them.
What is interesting and relevant about the high publicity Flame is receiving is that it is the first surveillance and espionage software of this scale. Flame is proof of a new era of covert, government sponsored IT war.
Brian Hoort
-----Original Message-----
From: STeve Andre' [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 3:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Flame
On 05/30/12 09:06, Kim Geiger wrote:
> I've had some worried questions about this much-publicized malware. Might the network security team be able to offer any reassurances that the MSU network wasn't a target or infected?
>
There is no way for the security folks to know this. You'd have a hard time proving a negative.
But this software isn't designed to destroy your computer, unlike thousands of others out there, and there are lots which do evil things like record off a mic. Flame has gotten too much publicity, and a lot of it sounds wrong.
--STeve Andre'
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