Stuxnet worm 'targeted high-value Iranian assets'

DUH???!!! :-D However funny that may be, the US power grid is quite porous to a cyber attack and this has been reported for years. I'm surprised that there hasn't been an attack yet, that we know of.

 

Power grids and water systems - wouldn't take a code writer to contaminate a fresh water reservoir.

I've worked on PLCs (Siemens, included) - I'd hate to know that the controller for that 1,000 ton wood chipper, or that uranium fuel rod emergency ejector thingy, or whatever, had been hacked - dangerous stuff.

Nation State? Probably. Individual or small group? Could be. Regardless, look for who would profit the most.

 

New York Times Article on Stuxnet

 

One more: this article seems to be the 'definitive':
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-deciphered-stuxnet/all/1

and this short commentary on the above & the Vanity Fair piece:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-sophisticated-cyberattack-in-history/241759/

"JUL 11 2011, 12:51 PM ET5
The story of Stuxnet, a piece of malware that almost certainly targeted an Iranian nuclear facility, is complex and dense. Most of the interesting stuff is buried in the half megabyte of code that the worm is made of, and telling a good story about the details is nearly as difficult as figuring them out in the first place.

That's why a new story on Wired's Threat Level by Kim Zetter is such a triumph. She got access to the security researchers who deciphered the worm and figured out how to tell the most technically informed story about Stuxnet I've ever read. While it may not contain any bombshell revelations about the worm, it will still stand as the definitive story about how the worm works and how we figured that out.

The other longform piece about Stuxnet, Michael Gross' Vanity Fair piece, a wonderfully devastating conclusion about what Stuxnet means. Zetter doesn't go into that explicitly, but by virtue of her blow-by-blow reporting about the shambling collaborative brilliance it took to reach real conclusions about the worm's behavior, we can draw a few of our own:

1. Unless the Pentagon and NSA have access to security researchers far superior to the known experts, this country is not ready for a war that uses software to cripple real-world infrastructure.
2. We probably won't know that who or what we're fighting until it's already on.
3. We probably won't know we've been attacked until after its already happened, perhaps months or even years later.

If you are interested in the future of cyberweapons, you owe it to yourself to read Zetter's piece. Even if you already know the basic features of the story, her writing and reporting will sharpen it in your mind."

 

What makes me wonder is if it is a nation state they would have known it would become world news so they must have damn well better have known it would work as advertised as the blowback from it could potentially be huge.

The virus has caused absolutely no damage what so ever and has only been a minor nuisance,a sophisticated nuisance but a nuisance none the less.

Would a state risk an all out global cyber war and/or risk its political integrity just to cause a nuisance?I actually think not,I think it will be a group of hackers.

If it were a nation state and I had to point a finger I'd point it at Isreal,I think its something MOSAD would try and simply because they just don't give a hoot what people think of them if it did blowback.