An alarmed Iran asks for outside help to stop rampaging Stuxnet malworm

DEBKA File ^ | 29 September, 2010 | NA

[Errant]

[Dick Vomer]

gee, How could this be? I thought that the Muslims were the smartest folks in the world. Everyone is always spouting off about how much Islam has "contributed" to math and the scientific community in general.

Now let's see, what country in that area has a motive to have released this malworm? What country has the intellectual manpower to create something this powerful yet effective?

Maybe that's why Israel never planned to bomb Iran. Maybe they planned on having Iran bomb itself.

The best thing that could happen would be to have this reactor go online and then have the cooling plant fail. I'm hoping that the Iranians put the reactor close to a major city. That would be Schadenfreude of the highest order.

[sionnsar]

Iran also refuses to give out data on the changes its engineers have made to imported SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems, mostly from Germany.

Read: Siemens

[ßuddaßudd]

Next there will be a fatwa against worms ∩ . .

[arthurus]

Jeez! It’s simple! All they have to do is replace all of their equipment and shoot or hang everyone who was ever in a position to possibly be able to plant such a thing. Then they can start over. Of course they will lose a couple of weeks of development progress but hey, that’s the breaks.

[sionnsar]

I read earlier their system was closed loop and this could have been inserted by a memory stick.

Not "closed loop" but "isolated" is what I think you meant. (Very different things.) But yes, if the virus were so written it could be conveyed by a memory card/stick.

Interesting that it appears designed to specifically attack Siemens SCADA systems. This was no accident.

[arthurus]

all this talk of striking Iran militarily

I think Israel has launched its attack. And Israel may have largely decapitated Hizbullah and Hamas with the same bomb. And this is the new "militarily."

[arthurus]

all this talk of striking Iran militarily

I think Israel has launched its attack. And Israel may have largely decapitated Hizbullah and Hamas with the same bomb. And this is the new "militarily."

[arthurus]

as long as it eats Iranian networks and doesn't burrow into other world networks

Well, a worm infested Russia and China would be nice.

[Errant]

Remember the computer security installed by Iran to track/crack down on protesters. I wonder...

[ryan71]

“Interesting that it appears designed to specifically attack Siemens SCADA systems. This was no accident.”

I also read something earlier that the worm attacked PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) programs. Don't know if you're familiar with PLCs. They probably control 90% of automated systems, worldwide. Of course, Siemens is one of many manufacturers of PLCs.

Lots a speculation...

[arthurus]

It is a worm with specific addresses on it. Something like it is in the future for all of us and surely our IT elite are furiously working on defenses even now.I expect my AVG to have a stuxnet update any time now, any time, come on you guys!

[Errant]

I expect my AVG to have a stuxnet update any time now

It's what I use though it failed me while researching Martin Armstrong.

[arthurus]

Possibly Israel, or even the US made a deal with a Siemens engineer who never left the home office. We kind of did it to the Russians in the 80s. We banned export of American computer equipment to the USSR then made sure the USSR got preloaded American computer equipment from illegal channels in “neutral” Sweden. The Russians them spent vast quantities of rubles barking up wrong trees. I guess we didn’t virus them, just sold them some special programs.

[arthurus]

I paid for McAffee for several years and only had a few virus attacks. Then I got AVG Free and have not had that problem in 9 years.

[Jewbacca]

“Why wouldn’t Russia do this? They can come in and save the day. (For a small fee of course)”

Because if they do, they’re next.

Pipelines blow up for real funny reasons, Putin.

Help, and enjoy sitting in the dark.

[arthurus]

I hope they are next, anyway.

[arthurus]

CYBER LEPANTO !

[Errant]

We kind of did it to the Russians in the 80s

I remember that being process control chips that actually led to some pipeline explosions.