Researchers find connection between Flame, Stuxnet computer viruses

Researchers at a computer security firm said they found evidence that the teams who created the Stuxnet and Flame viruses worked together. The report suggests that both viruses might have been the work of the United States government.

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab, a Russian firm that first identified the Flame virus, said they discovered nearly identical pieces of code in the two viruses, indicating cooperation between the developers of the viruses. Alexander Gostev, chief security expert for Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement that Flame and Stuxnet use "completely different platforms" and "have different architectures with their own unique tricks that were used to infect systems and execute primary tasks." "The projects were indeed separate and independent from each other," he said. But he concluded that the new findings prove that the virus developers "cooperated at least once." "What we have found is very strong evidence that [Stuxnet] and Flame cyber-weapons are connected," he said.