Security experts have made a breakthrough in their five-month battle against the Conficker worm, with the discovery that the malware leaves a fingerprint on infected machines which is easy to detect using a variety of off-the-shelf network scanners. The finding means that, for the first time, administrators around the world have easy-to-use tools to positively identify machines on their networks that are contaminated by the worm.

A highly sophisticated computer virus is infecting computers in Middle Eastern and North African countries.  It appears to have been at least five years ago.  Is this state-sponsored cyber espionage?

Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cyber-security software maker, said it discovered the virus, dubbed Flame, after a U.N. telecommunications agency asked it to analyze data on malicious software across the Middle East in search of the data-wiping virus reported by Iran.