WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is warning American businesses about an unusually potent computer virus that infected Iran’s oil industry even as suspicions persist that the United States is responsible for secretly creating and unleashing cyberweapons against foreign countries.
The government’s dual roles of alerting U.S. companies about these threats and producing powerful software weapons and eavesdropping tools underscore the risks of an unintended, online boomerang.
Unlike a bullet or missile fired at an enemy, a cyberweapon that spreads across the Internet might circle back to infect computers it was never supposed to target. It’s one of the unusual challenges facing the programmers who build such weapons and presidents who must decide when to launch them.
The Homeland Security Department’s warning about the new virus, known as “Flame,” assured U.S. companies that no infections had been discovered so far inside the U.S.
It described Flame as an espionage tool that was sophisticated in design, using encryption and other techniques to help break into computers and move through corporate or private networks. The virus can eavesdrop on data traffic, take screenshots and record audio and keystrokes. The department said the origin is a mystery.
The White House has declined to discuss the virus.
Suspicions about the U.S. government’s role in the use of cyberweapons were heightened by a report in Friday’s New York Times. Based on anonymous sources, it said President Barack Obama secretly ordered the use of another sophisticated cyberweapon, known as Stuxnet, to attack the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities. The order was an extension of a sabotage program that the Times said began during the Bush administration.
The White House said Friday it would not discuss whether the U.S. was responsible for the Stuxnet attacks on Iran.
On the Internet, where being connected is a virtue, an attack intended for one target can spread unexpectedly. Whether a cyberweapon can boomerang depends on its state of the art, according to computer security experts. On that point, there are deep divisions over Flame.
Russian digital security provider Kaspersky Lab, which first identified the virus, said Flame’s complexity and functionality “exceed those of all other cybermenaces known to date.” There is no doubt, the company said, that a government sponsored the research that developed it. Yet Flame’s author remains unknown because there is no information in the code of the virus that would link it to a particular country.
