Slashdot Mirror
Experts 'Convinced' Duqu Work of Stuxnet Authors
Trailrunner7 writes "Researchers are fairly confident now that whoever wrote the Duqu malware was also involved in developing the Stuxnet worm. They're also confident that they have not yet identified all of the individual components of Duqu, meaning that there are potentially some other capabilities that haven't been documented yet. There was a lot of speculation when Duqu first emerged about whether the attack was the work of the same group--still unknown--that had created Stuxnet and unleashed it on Iran's nuclear facilities last year. Some of that was centered on supposed similarities in the code between the two pieces of malware, but that was before many of the individual components of Duqu had been identified and analyzed. Now that the analysis and research into the Duqu malware have advanced a bit, researchers say they've found more evidence that points to the malware being the work of the Stuxnet authors or their close associates. 'I'm convinced it's the same group,' Costin Raiu, director of global research and analysis at Kaspersky Lab, who has done much of the analysis of Duqu, said."
No.
Malware researchers should investigate malware, regardless of its pedigree. The malware doesn't discriminate as to the computer. Duqu and Stuxnet will infect a Windows system regardless its location and use. That was part of the idea behind Stuxnet: wide initial deployment so that it would eventually find its way into the Iranian centrifuge system. The authors don't seem to care if they infect non-affiliated systems along the way.
There is also no reason why the exploits being used in Duqu and Stuxnet, presumably by western governments, can't be rebranded by our more run of the mill botnet farmers and spammers.