Posted on 06/09/2011 8:30:52 PM PDT by neverdem
Last year's Stuxnet virus attack represented a new kind of threat to critical infrastructure.
Just over a year ago, a computer in Iran started repeatedly rebooting itself, seemingly without reason. Suspecting some kind of malicious software (malware), analysts at VirusBlokAda, an antivirus-software company in Minsk, examined the misbehaving machine over the Internet, and soon found that they were right. Disturbingly so: the code they extracted from the Iranian machine proved to be a previously unknown computer virus of unprecedented size and complexity.
On 17 June 2010, VirusBlokAda issued a worldwide alert that set off an international race to track down what came to be known as Stuxnet: the most sophisticated computer malware yet found and the harbinger of a new generation of cyberthreats. Unlike conventional malware, which does its damage only in the virtual world of computers and networks, Stuxnet would turn out to target the software that controls pumps, valves, generators and other industrial machines.
"It was the first time we'd analysed a threat that could cause real-world damage, that could actually cause some machine to break, that might be able to cause an explosion," says Liam O Murchu, chief of security response for the world's largest computer-security firm, Symantec in Mountain View, California.
Stuxnet provided chilling proof that groups or nations could launch a cyberattack against a society's vital infrastructures for water and energy. "We are probably just now entering the era of the cyber arms race," says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for F-Secure, an antivirus company based in Helsinki.
Worse yet, the Stuxnet episode has highlighted just how inadequate are society's current defences — and how glaring is the gap in cybersecurity science.
Computer-security firms are competitive in the marketplace, but they generally respond to a threat such as Stuxnet with close collaboration behind the scenes...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Weinberger is not accurate.
Stuxnet is an “Imaginary Weapon” (of the
type which she demeans and fights against)
which became an Imagined Weapon and
was launched to protect the free West.
It is thought that Stuxnet was targeting Iranian nuclear facilities...
There is more on the way I’m sure...
>> Last year’s Stuxnet virus attack represented a new kind of threat to critical infrastructure.
Being pragmatic, I suppose individual espionage and infiltration would be far more practical and superior, but of course with the aid of technology.
It is because of stuff like this, that Rambo is now homeless and collecting food stamps, he should have formed a union.
The Israelis, and possibly the US, took advantage of sloppy Iranian computer security and their penchant for using pirated software. Stuxnet is said to have been introduced via a thumb drive. It may not be the first shot fired in cyber warfare, but it’s certainly been one of the most effective.
lol.. 'Minsk' and 'misbehaving machine'... we've moved away from misbehaving humans to machine. Wow!
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