As is reasonably commonly known, other Governments are and were involved in the development of Stux, Flame and other software.
The Washington Post reported here that Israel developed the spyware together with the US. The idea of masking spyware as Microsoft, Linux, BSD or any other operating system, is not new as uber cyber criminals, private spies, Governments and others have been doing this for a very long time. It is the first time that countries directly attack another country, in public though and it underscores the new warfare methods of using unmanned drones for bombings as well as directed cyber attacks against infrastructure. It also alerts ignorant countries and companies to disable automated updates on their networks as their IP will be stolen and infrastructure can be compromised.
What it also does is to highlight the advantages that countries like China has in terms of Red Flag Linux. It could be of national security importance for any sovereign country to support the development and acceptance of open standards and open source software. Not only does it empower that countries youth employment schemes but it serves to develop important skills required for survival in the Information age.
