Iran combats Duqu trojan

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran has confirmed some of its computer systems were infected with the Duqu Trojan, but said it has found a way to control the malware, BBC reports.

Security organizations had previously identified Iran as one of at least eight countries targeted by the code.

The spyware is believed to have been designed to steal data to help launch further cyber attacks. The sender has not been identified, but researchers have found a reference to a U.S. television program in Duqu's code.

The Iranian news agency, IRNA, reported that the country's cyber defense unit was taking steps to combat the infection.

"The software to control the virus has been developed and made available to organizations and corporations," Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran's civil defense body, is quoted as saying. "All the organizations and centers that could be susceptible to being contaminated are being controlled."

Mr Jalali said a "final report" into which organizations had been targeted was still being worked on.

Last year the Iranian government accused the West of trying to disrupt its nuclear facilities using the Stuxnet worm computer attack. Then in April 2011 officials said the country's facilities had been targeted by a second piece of malware dubbed "Stars".

Officials now describe the Duqu attack as the "third virus" to hit Iran.

The computer security specialist Kaspersky Lab said it believed that "Stars" was a keylogging program that may have been part of the same attack that installed Duqu.

Keylogging programs are able to collect information about a computer system, take screenshots, search for files and capture passwords.