The new threat, discovered by a Europe-based research lab and dubbed “Duqu”, is not designed to physically affect industrial systems like Stuxnet was, but apparently is only used to gather information on potential targets that could be helpful in a future cyber attack, cyber security giant Symantec said in a report today.

“Duqu shares a great deal of code with Stuxnet; however, the payload is completely different,” Symantec said in a blog post.

Duqu is designed to record key strokes and gather other system information at companies in the industrial control system field and then send that information back to whomever planted the bug, Symantec said…

“Right now it’s in the reconnaissance stage, you could say,” Symantec Senior Director for Security Technology and Response, Gerry Egan, told ABC News. “[But] there’s a clear indication an attack is being planned.”