It strongly believes a nation state is responsible because it "would have required a significant investment of time and resources".

Among the infected countries, Russia was hit the most with 28%, followed by Saudi Arabia with 24%. The malware was also present in Mexico, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Belgium, Austria and Pakistan, while there were no reported infections in the US.

The bug has been compared to the Stuxnet worm, which was discovered in 2010 and was thought to have been used by the US and Israeli governments to snoop on computers associated with Iran's nuclear program.