Stuxnet is less of an espionage tool than a way of sabotaging targeted infrastructure, but it does so in a hard-to-detect manner that exploits commercial software utilized throughout the world.
IBM's Web focus also exploits the timely appeal that software-as-a-service has to IT managers' wallets in the midst of the current economic downturn, says IDC Research Analyst Frank Genz.
Vupen is just one of a number of companies that have created controversy in the security community by profiting from zero-day exploits rather than working with software firms to fix the hackable vulnerabilities they use.
Just as important, the platform will host exploits only for known vulnerabilities, not so-called zero day exploits--new attacks for which software companies haven't yet issued fixes.
Miscreants use these exploits to turn compromised websites into platforms for silently installing keyloggers and other types of malicious software on the computers of unsuspecting visitors.