The Washington Post reports that the US and Israel cooperated to create the
Flame malware — a computer espionage worm infecting thousands of systems throughout the Middle East — in order to attack Iran's nuclear weapons program. The confirmation, from anonymous Western officials, links Flame to the Stuxnet cyberweapon that the US and Israel
used to target Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009.The
Post reports that the effort involved the NSA, CIA, and Israeli military, and that it was developed at least five years ago under the classified code-name "Olympic Games."
The connection to the US and Israel had been previously speculated, as researchers recently
discovered a "missing link" of code between Flame and Stuxnet that suggested the malware was developed by the same author. Codenamed "Worm.Win32.Flame," the malware has been described as "one of the most complex threats ever discovered," and is believed to have infected thousands of computers, primarily in Iran and Israel.
