The Middle East under Malware Attack Dissecting Cyber Weapons

The Middle East is currently the target of an unprecedented campaign of cyber attacks carried out by unknown parties. The energy industry is particularly targeted. The attacks are carried out by deploying extremely sophisticated malware. The campaign opened by the Stuxnet malware in 2010 and then continued through Duqu, Flame, Gauss, and Shamoon malware. This paper is a technical survey of the attacking vectors utilized by the three most famous malware, namely, Stuxnet, Flame, and Shamoon. We describe their main modules, their sophisticated spreading capabilities, and we discuss what it sets them apart from typical malware. The main purpose of the paper is to point out the recent trends infused by this new breed of malware into cyber attacks.