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A Moscow-based cyber security team has discovered the most advanced computer program for spying ever – they say a nation wrote it to spy on the Middle East, though they don't know which nation specifically. They’re calling it “Flame.” Roel Schouwenberg, a senior policy analyst for Kaspersky Labs, the company that discovered Flame, explains exactly what makes this worm so special. And Kim Zetter, a senior writer at Wired Magazine, discusses what this means for the future of espionage and security.

The prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel may be good news for an American man who has been detained in Egypt since June. Ilan Grapel, a 27-year-old law student from Queens, New York, who is also an Israeli citizen, was accused by Egypt of being a spy for Israel. Grapel's family have denied he has any links to espionage. Ethan Bronner, who reported on the story for The New York Times, has the latest on Grapel's expected release.

According to newly unsealed FBI documents, the Pakistani military and its spy agency, the ISI, has spent $4 million over two decades to influence U.S. policy against India. The FBI has also indicted two U.S. citizens in connection with illegally lobbying members of Congress and presidential candidates. Syed Fai, who lives in Virginia, was arrested on Tuesday for failing to register with the Justice Department as an agent of Pakistan. The other man, Zaheer Ahmad, is at large in Pakistan.

A former National Security Agency employee who was charged with leaking classified information has brokered a plea deal just days before his trial was set to begin. Thomas Drake pleaded guilty to a minor misdemeanor charge, and will face no jail time. Had he been convicted of the ten felony counts he was indicted for in April under the 1917 Espionage Act, he could have served over 30 years in prison. Drake pleaded guilty to misusing a government computer to share classified information with someone not authorized to receive that information. 

Today's Please Explain looks at spying, the organizations that do it, and how it's carried out and why. We're joined by Thomas S. Blanton, from George Washington University National Security Archives, and Joseph Weisberg, former CIA operative and author of An Ordinary Spy.

Reza Kahlili tells us about the inner workings of the notorious Revolutionary Guards of Iran, which he witnessed as an Iranian man in the ranks spying for the American government. A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran is a chronicle of lives torn apart by a terror-mongering regime that brought an age of religious fundamentalism under the Ayatollah Khomeini, and an account of his decades leading a double life informing on Iran: the country of his birth.

Filmmaker Christian Carion and CIA veteran Jack Divine discuss Russian spies and international espionage in the 1980s. Carion’s film “Farewell” is set in Moscow in 1981, and recounts the true story of a disenchanted KGB colonel who gives top-secret documents to a French businessman working in Russia in an effort to end of the Cold War and create a better world for his son.

A Manhattan judge granted bail to one person accused of spying for Russia and denied bail to two others after a prosecutor warned the defendants had plenty of helpers in the U.S. to help them flee.

Nine of the 11 people arrested for allegedly serving as secret Russian spies will be appearing in federal court again today.

As more details emerge about the 11 people accused of being secret Russian spies, many are wondering ... are there others out there?

The FBI has arrested 10 people in Yonkers, Boston and northern Virginia the agency claims are secret Russian agents and an eleventh alleged spy was arrested overseas later today. 

Eamon Javers discusses the rise of corporate spying, which has stretched into almost every industry in almost every corner of the globe.

Michael Furlong, a Defense Department official, set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants. Mark Mazetti, who broke The New York Times, said Furlong used around 20 million dollars to hire private contractors to do intelligence gathering around Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This is a spy novelist's dream. So we turned to one. Frederick Forsyth  is the author of such acclaimed books as, "The Day of the Jackal," "The Odessa File," "and "The Dogs of War."

Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has just been released from an Iranian prison. Saberi was convicted last month of spying for the United States in a quick trial that was closed to the public. Her incarceration caused an international uproar and President Obama asked for her release. Saberi's lawyer said today that an appeals court in Iran reduced her jail term for spying from eight years to a two-year suspended sentence. For more we turn to New York Times' reporter Nazila Fathi and then to Jon Leyne, the BBC's Tehran correspondent.

Did Irani officials bow to pressure in the Saberi case? For more information, watch this video from the Associated Press.

International computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter Project. The $300 billion program is the military's costliest weapons project ever. The intruders into the Fighter Project were able to copy data related to design and electronic systems of the planes, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft. Recently, similar cyber-attacks have breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system. While those directly responsible for this attack could not be identified, many former officials claim the move bears the hallmarks of previous encounters with China. For more we turn to the reporter responsible for breaking this story, Siobhan Gorman, Intelligence Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

For more, read Siobhan Gorman's article, Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project, in today's Wall Street Journal.

Yesterday President Obama visited the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia and delivered a message of reassurance and renewal. His speech at the CIA came in the wake of his administration's release of the so-called torture memos. Those documents detailed the "enhanced interrogations techniques" that CIA operatives used to extract information from purported al Qaida operatives. The Obama administration has said these techniques might constitute illegal torture. In his speech, President Obama joined CIA Director Leon Panetta in telling the CIA that they supported them in their mission, but waterboarding and other harsh tactics devalues their work and America’s moral standing in the world. Joining The Takeaway to discuss the CIA's reaction to the President's words is Art Keller, a former CIA case officer.

Miss the President's speech at Langley? Here it is:

Jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in prison for alleged espionage. President Obama has called for her release, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has urged the country’s chief prosecutor to fairly examine the case. But Robin Wright, Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the author of Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East, says Saberi may be caught in the crossfire during a period of extraordinary tensions within Iran and between Iran and the US.

For more on this case, watch the video below from the Associated Press.

An exclusive story from the Wall Street Journal says that cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system. In eerie echoes of the Cold War, government officials are blaming China and Russia, but is nearly impossible to know whether or not this act is government-sponsored because of the difficulty in tracking true identities in cyberspace. The spooks were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. And while the intruders haven't damaged the power grid, officials warned they could. For more on this startling story, we turn to the Wall Street Journal's Intelligence Correspondent Siobhan Gorman.

Read Siobhan Gorman's article, Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies in today's Wall Street Journal.

As we looked over the front page of today's New York Times, two stories caught our eye. The first, Iraqi Elections Face Crucial Test in Violent Mosul by Ian Fisher discusses how national politics in Iraq are actually local. The second, U.S. Says Jailed C.I.A. Mole Kept Spying for Russia by Eric Lichtblau is a fascinating account of a former CIA officer who never stopped being a Russian spy despite being in prison. Both authors join us today.