Mass murder by pacemaker hacking isn’t the likeliest scenario, but clinical tools and SCADA devices still deserve serious security scrutiny.

We read that “FinFisher spyware made by U.K.-based Gamma Group can take control of a range of mobile devices, including Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry…”, at the opening of a Bloomberg article that several readers of the ESET blog sent us yesterday, along with a number of questions that boil down

Last week, reports of a new malware named Gauss emerged, a complex threat that has attracted a lot of media attention due to its links to Stuxnet and Flame and its geographical distribution.  Since ESET has added detection for this threat, we are seeing geographical distribution of detection reports similar to those detailed by Kaspersky.

A week ago the big malware news was the code known as Flame, Flamer, or sKyWIper (detected by ESET as Win32/Flamer.A), then on June 1, this news broke: "A damaging cyberattack against Iran’s nuclear program was the work of U.S. and Israeli experts and proceeded under the secret orders of President Obama." (Washington Post)  Clearly,

Despite the confusion and the stampede to claim detection ownership, W32/Flamer is more than a media sensation.

In fact, the real interest of the document lies in the extensive overview (12 closely-typed pages without graphics and such) of the DHS view of its own cybersecurity mission.

I've stopped maintaining Stuxnet resource pages recently, but occasionally I come across an article that adds something useful to the mix, or simply summarizes aspects of the Stuxnet story neatly and accurately. Besides, its authors must be feeling a little left out with all that fuss about TDL4. ;-) A recent report in Wired gives

“Infrastructure Attacks: The Next Generation?” now includes the speaker notes, which hopefully makes it more interesting and useful.

…the ‘next Stuxnet’ probably won’t be any such thing, whatever we may choose to call it…

… albeit more slowly than previously. Added to the resources page at http://blog.eset.com/2011/01/23/stuxnet-information-and-resources-3 today: A nice article by Mark Russinovich on Analyzing a Stuxnet Infection with the Sysinternals Tools, Part 1. Though I don't think Stuxnet is universally acknowledged as the most sophisticated malware ever. See, for instance, http://gcn.com/articles/2011/01/18/black-hat-stuxnet-not-superworm.aspx. (Hat tip to Security Garden for the pointer.)