Flame can take over computers, log keystrokes and mouse movements, record screenshots, turn on cameras and microphones without turning on red lights, copy and exfiltrate data to its masters -- but so can any number of $200 criminal malware kits.

Flame is modular -- but so is any good software.

There's a few new-sounding tricks involving Bluetooth and the like -- but again that's surely evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Until now, the reference point for complex malware -- at least in public -- has been , the worm that supposedly sabotaged Iran's uranium enrichment program in 2009 and 2010.

Stuxnet probably cost just a few million dollars to produce, according to Patrick Gray, presenter of the Risky Business security podcast.