Slashdot Mirror
Stuxnet Worms On
Numerous Stuxnet related stories continue to flow through my bin today, so brace yourself:
Unsurprisingly, Iran blames Stuxnet on a plot set up by the West, designed to infect its nuclear facilities. A Symantec researcher analyzed the code and put forth attack scenarios. A Threatpost researcher writes about the sophistication of the worm. Finally, Dutch multinationals have revealed that the worm is also attacking them. We may never know what this thing was really all about.
And yet, Macs *are* capable of uploading viruses to alien ships.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I for one feel it's safe to assume Iran is right, that this is a nefarious plot by unnamed western nations to stop Iran's glorious peaceful nuclear power program, but that absolutely no computers controlling the nuclear program were infected. After all, Iran is completely trustworthy and it's nuclear scientists are smart enough not to use control computers to check their e-mail and click on random links from random people.
I'm also going to assume that fake first post was part of a nefarious plot by unnamed western nations to tarnish Iran's glorious image as first posters.
I'm pretty sure Stuxnet is in fact a sophisticated attack worm created by a government to slow or halt Iran in producing nuclear weapons.
There are plenty of candidates beyond the U.S. and Israel - Saudi Arabia for one, would be another country really not happy with a nuclear Iran, though certainly the U.S. or Israel seems most likely.
But lets consider the most intriguing possibility - a country with tons of expertise in developing advanced malware already, and one with incredibly detailed knowledge of Iranian systems.
Of course, I'm speaking of Russia.
At first it sounds crazy because Russian scientists are helping Iran build a reactor in the first place. But perhaps that help was lined up long before, and Russia has decided Iran is too crazy now to be allowed to have The Bomb, so they activated Stuxnet, prepared in advance for such an eventuality. Or perhaps they simply wanted to get money from the help and then the cleanup...
Russian scientists have been fleeing Iran because Iran is now going after guys in cubicles and saying they are spies. So perhaps even there, they know something most of us do not...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Thats pretty much what he said. Actually, homosexuality in their culture is a whole topic unto itself. What was interesting to me was the way he seemed to imply that there is a difference between "public morality" and "private". Have you ever seen how many "witnesses" are required to accuse someone of certain things (like being a homosexual) under sharia law, for example?
What he seemed, to me, to be espousing was the idea that "what you do in private is between you and god, but, what other people see you do, is another matter". In some ways it reminds me of a japanese woman who was interviewed for the book "Lust in Translation" (never read it, but heard several stories about it) who was not mad at her husband for having an affair, as she had her own, but was mad that he was careless and allowed her to find out about it.
Having known a few Iranian ex-pats, I must say, they have a fascinating culture, and one thats very different from our own in many ways.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Despite the numerous slashdot articles and buzz about it, I'm seeing scant actual details.
How was it delivered? Via Internet? Botnet? Unknown at this time? According to the article it "can spread using several vectors."
It also says 2 of the 4 zero-day vulnerabilities have been patched by MS.
The article about a possible attack scenario leads more credibility to the claim that there had to be inside help. You need people on the inside for Reconnaissance and deployment. Even if it was spread from the internet, someone had to get ahold of the security certificates to crack them and know the specific types of PLCs in use. The arrests that recently took place in Iran are making a lot more sense, despite all the knee-jerk condemnation from the /. posters.