Flame spy virus gets order to vanish

US computer security researchers said Sunday that the Flame computer virus that smoldered undetected for years in Middle Eastern energy facilities has gotten orders to vanish, leaving no trace.

Anti-virus company Symantec said in a blog post that late last week, some Flame "command-and-control servers sent an updated command to several compromised computers."

"This command was designed to completely remove (Flame) from the compromised computers."

Flame malicious software (malware) appears to have been "in the wild" for two years or longer and prime targets so far have been energy facilities in the Middle East, especially in Iran.

The discovery of Flame immediately sparked speculation that it had been created by US and Israeli security services to steal information about Iran's controversial nuclear drive.