While Russian anti-virus software producer Kaspersky Lab announced the discovery of a new computer virus named “Mini-Flame”, its co-founder and chief executive officer Eugene Kaspersky said the global cyber warfare is becoming more sophisticated and threatening.

Delivering a key-note at the ongoing five-day ITU ( International Telecommunication Union) Telecom World conference, which kicked off Sunday in Dubai, Kaspersky said cyber attacks on individuals, companies and governments in recent years happpened systematically and became more sophisticated.

“The cyber warfare is in full swing and we expect it to escalate in 2013,” he said.

Kaspersky Lab, headquartered in Moscow, is one of the leading anti-virus software producers in the world. According to a company statement, Kaspersky detects 125,000 computer viruses every day worldwide. “The latest malicious virus attack on the world’s largest oil and gas company Saudi Aramco last August shows how dependent we are today on the internet and information technology in general, and how vulnerable we are,” said Kaspersky, who co- founded the anti-virus software producer named after him in 1997.

The attack on Saudi Aramco, which briefly paralyzed 30,000 personal computers within the firm, led U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to say that firstly Iran was behind the virus and secondly that the world could face a cyber Pearl Harbor, in reference to Japan’s airstrike on the U.S. Navy fleet in Hawaii in 1941, a move that dragged the United States into the World War II.

Kaspersky refused to fingerpoint at any country that could be behind recent virus attacks in the Middle East. “Our job is not to identity hackers or cyber-terrorists. Our firm is like an X-ray machine, meaning we can scan and identify a problem, but we cannot say who or what is behind this.”

Earlier in the day, Kaspersky Lab said in a media release that it found a new malware and named it Mini-Flame in relation to the flame virus. Malware programs are software bugs to spy out other computers. In an e-mailed statement, Kaspersky described Mini- Flame as a “small and highly flexible malicious program designed to steal data and control infected systems during targeted cyber espionage operations.”

Iran confirmed in May that a virus called Flame attacked computers of high-ranking officials and that the bug caused massive data loss in the country. Tehran accused Israel and the United States of having developed Flame. Both countries blame Iran of secretly building an atomic bomb under the cover of its nuclear energy program.

Because the Middle East moved into the global focus of cyber warfare, Kaspersky witnesses excessive growth in the region. In the first quarter sales of its anti-virus programs increased 35 percent year-on-year.

In order to avoid a global blackout, Kaspersky said states worldwide must cooperate in order to fight cyber warfare and cyber- terrorism.

Asked by Xinhua how far Kaspersky’s own readiness goes to cooperate with competing anti-virus software producers such as Symantec or McAfee, Kaspersky answered, “That cooperation already kicked off in the late 1990s. Until today, we are regularly exchanging information in the branch. However, when it comes to fighting cyber warfare, we rely on our own resources.”