Shanmoon was discovered by Seculert, Symantec, and Kaspersky Lab on 16 August 2012 that targets 32-bit NT kernel versions of Microsoft Windows. It is a modular virus and is also known as W32.DisTrack. This virus was crafted for cyber-warfare as it spread the malicious-content from an infected machine to other systems connected to the network. The behavior of the virus and the impact of the malware infection is different from the other malware attacks. When the system is infected with virus it assembles a set of files from a location on the infected machine, uploads them to the attacker’s system, and then deletes them. It then over-writes the master boot record of the infected system making it unable to use.
This virus was curated by the cyber thieves to fight against the national oil companies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Shamoon virus targets computers that run Windows NT, Windows 9x, and Windows Me.
The Shamoon virus has been found to have similar features of a flame virus which were also discovered in 2012. It was developed by cyber-criminals to target educational institutions, governmental organizations, and private individuals noticeably people in the Middle East like Iran.
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