The road to cyberwar? F-Secure’s Mikko Hypponen on the growth of government-sponsored malware

This week saw Flame hit the headlines. The most complex piece of malware ever discovered, it appears to have been designed as an espionage tool deployed against Iran and other countries in the Middle East.

Most alarmingly, Flame appears to have been loose in the wild, undetected, for over two years. It may possibly have been active for even longer than Stuxnet, the virus targeted at disrupting Iran’s nuclear program, which was previously the the most advanced malware known.

With governments suspected to be the source of these viruses, where are we headed? Full-on cyberwarfare between nations? Could terrorists use the same techniques? How can governments defend themselves against hostile code?

At the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, UK, yesterday, I battled through a sore throat to speak to F-Secure‘s Chief Research Officer, Mikko Hypponen to find out more about the future of this rapidly emerging area. You can listen to the conversation below.