The head of the United Nations telecommunications agency told the BBC that he doesn’t believe the United States was behind the Flame information-stealing malware that was detected on hundreds of computers in Iran in late May.
As Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said according to a BBC article published online Thursday:
“All indications are that Flame has been created by a nation state, that’s clear…The ITU is not mandated to make a judgement on who is responsible. Our role is to work with partners to promote better co-operation.”
The BBC notes that Toure talked directly with several countries about the malware, but added:
“I don’t suspect that the US is behind it.”
Toure also brushed off a recent New York Times report that found the U.S. and Israel were behind the Stuxnet malware that damaged an Iranian nuclear plant in 2010.
That said, Toure continued to advocate the ITU’s increasingly urgent call for international cooperation between nations, saying it’s necessary to prevent a “cyber war.”
