A new super cyber-virus named “Gauss” has infected computers across the Middle East, computer security experts at Kaspersky Lab announced Thursday.
Gauss has been found extensively in Lebanon, Israel, and Palestinian computers, according to Kaspersky Lab experts, who estimate that the virus was designed to jump from country to country.
Gauss infiltrates Windows computer systems and hacks into the users’ banking, email and social-networking data. Based on timestamp data retrieved from the virus, Kaspersky Lab said it was likely created in August or September 2011.
Kaspersky Lab also said that it can penetrate infrastructure system software and was designed in the same lab as its predecessors Flame, Duqu, and Stuxnet.
The Stuxnet virus reportedly caused considerable damage to the Iranian nuclear program.
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Carl Friedrich Gauss was a prominent German mathematician, who died in 1855.
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