Former Spy Talks Argo NEW YORK -- Antonio “Tony” Mendez is the rarest of creatures: A former spy who has come out of the woodwork. His story is the subject of Ben Affleck’s new film, Argo, tipped to feature in Hollywood’s awards season. Argo is based on one of Mendez’s most remarkable missions, rescuing six Americans from Iran during the height of the 1979 hostage crisis and helping them pose as a Canadian film crew making a fictitious film calledArgo. It follows Mendez’s memoir of the same name, released in September. Mendez, 72, who was named in 1997 one of the CIA’s top 50 officers of its first 50 years, talked to Reuters about Argo the movie, the real CIA operation and current events in the Middle East. Q: Argo the film depicts the 1979 storming of the US embassy and hostage crisis. How do you compare that to...
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By jdleasure cyberattack cyberespionage cybertscm espionage
Meet Flame Espionage Malware Cousin: MiniFlame Suspected Flame module turns out to be standalone attack code in use since at least 2010, described as targeted cyberweapon for conducting in-depth surveillance and espionage. Ongoing teardowns of the Flame malware and its underlying components have yielded a surprising discovery: a new piece of malware. Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab said that what they previously suspected was an attack module for the Flame malware is instead a standalone piece of attack code, although it can do double duty as a plug-in for both the Flame and Gauss malware. Designed for data theft and for providing attackers with direct access to an infected system, MiniFlame is based on the same architectural platform as Flame, according to Kaspersky Lab. "MiniFlame is a high-precision attack tool," said Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab, in an emailed statement. "Most likely...