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F-Secure Report: Another SCADA Attack in Iran — This Time With AC/DC
An anonymous reader writes "F-Secure antivirus company of Finland has reported receiving e-mails from an Iranian nuclear scientist, who says Persian uranium-235 isotope refining efforts have just been hit with yet another cyber strike. (Stuxnet, Duqu and Flamer-Skywiper being the previous iterations of the same Operation Project Olympic attack plan.) Last month, President Obama's staff has admitted to the New York Times that there is a joint Israel-U.S. cybermilitary operation was behind the mishaps Iranians have recently been suffering with their UF6 gas refining centrifuge systems in the Natanz and Fordo plants. This time, the unverified e-mail claims, a new Metasploit-based malware owns Iranian VPNs, causes fault in the nuclear plants' Siemens-based industrial control systems, and randomly starts to play AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck' aloud via the infected computers' speakers."
Rock and revolt!
Sound of the drums
Beatin' in my heart
The thunder of guns
Tore me apart
You've been - thunderstruck
"This time, the unverified e-mail claims, a new Metasploit-based malware owns iranian VPNs..."
Might as well have put "pwns" instead.
It sounds like Tony Stark may have had a hand in this one.
That's quality craftsmanship, right there. In addition to delivering it's payload, the malware effs with with the target a little. Style over stealth FTW!
I would have gone for "Born in the USA"
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Noriega has company now. This wouldn't be the first time the US has used rock music against its enemies.
This somehow seems like a disinformation campaign by the iranians. With the refinement Flame/Stuxnet had, it seems a bit too amateurish that all of a sudden the attack methods would become so much more primitive and obvious to the victims (I mean, seriously, playing loud music in the middle of the night?)
What other songs could the virus rock out with?
"Stranglehold"
"Eve Of Destruction"
"Dogs Of War"
"Born In The USA"
Pretty much anything off Dark Side Of The Moon
I hope the malware writers (or the US gov't) have agreed their license fees with the respective record companies, otherwise they'll find themselves in a world of pain!
If Iran continues its weapons program the virus escalates to playing "Rock the Casbah."
Will be amazing the variations of the "Cyberwar, wrong" message from the government in the next months/years, specially every time a hack widespreads or they want to catch even more private information from people of all countries. The key to be the victim in any conflict is dismiss/deny every time you were the attacker.
Yeah, so suddenly the guys who did a lot of work to be undetected will use Metasploit code and disclose their owning of the computers with an AC/DC song ....
Methinks someone is not reaching his objectives and found a good scapegoat as an excuse...
The alternative of course would be that script kiddies are owning Iran's nuclear researchs lab infrastructure ...
http://www.transparency.org
I wonder what the RIAA thinks of all these copies of 'Thunderstruck' on the Iranian computers. If it wasn't the US government making this malware they'd probably demand a license fee for each playing of 'Thunderstruck' on a computer in Iran.
---
I have a few bones to pick with the summary, of a factual nature. Corrections are in bold, I have not corrected the grammatical errors.
"F-Secure antivirus company of Finland has reported receiving e-mails from an Iranian nuclear scientist, who says Persian uranium-235 isotope refining efforts have just been hit with yet another cyber strike. (Stuxnet, Duqu and Flamer-Skywiper allegedly being the previous iterations of the same Operation Project Olympic attack plan.) Last month, an anonymous member of President Obama's staff has allegedly admitted to the New York Times that there is a joint Israel-U.S. cybermilitary operation was behind the mishaps Iranians have recently been suffering with their UF6 gas refining centrifuge systems in the Natanz and Fordo plants. This time, the unverified e-mail claims, a new Metasploit-based malware owns iranian VPNs, causes fault in the nuclear plants' Siemens-based industrial control systems, and randomly starts to play AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck' aloud via the infected computers' speakers."
I'm not saying the Times is wrong, but I don't trust their source completely. I also am not claiming he's wrong, but the press has a very bad habit of really fucking up critical details of technology-related stories. For example, I find it pretty hard to swallow that such an operation would only involve the US and Israel. It's all very convenient, and tidy, and in real life the real story is very rarely wrapped up in such a pretty little package. We certainly need at least an independent confirmation of the source's information.
They are seriously dancing around if this is an act of war. If Iran started hitting the US I suspect these actions would have a different spin. Of course the US is a super power so war with them is on a completely different level than the smaller countries.
It's been opened.
The US will not encounter foreign boots on the ground but cyber retaliation... and I promise it could get very ugly. As a former Network Admin, Accelerator Designer, and now Siemens Programmer I can tell you that these viruses can be turned back on us. Much of the world runs on Siemens programming. Oil rigs, chemical mixers, MRI scanners, food prep, power grids, water treatment, and manufacturing assembly of all kinds (right off the top of my head) all run on Siemens hardware/software and we don't have the ability to defend against it.
However, I am not worried about Iran. It's China who already has their digital boots on the ground.
Will the RIAA be sending the Iranian government a cease and desist notice for violating its copyright on the song?
at some point they need to learn how to secure their infrastructure. I mean, they know they are under attack, and still another virus get thru? It's gonna be suck working in IT dept over there right now. they're gonna be asked what went wrong and how to make sure it won't happen again. If I were them, I would start by put some glue in empty USB ports. Given that Stuxnex got into their system via USB memory stick so it doesn't sound too bad.
I weep at the lost opportunity for rickrolling.
Thomas Dolby
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Federal agents must be going through iranian IP addresses of the Cryptography course on Coursera.
> President Obama's staff has admitted to the New York Times that there is a joint Israel-U.S. cybermilitary operation was behind the mishaps Iranians have recently been suffering with their UF6 gas refining centrifuge systems in the Natanz and Fordo plants.
Remind me, when and where exactly did Obama's staff admit this? Is there anything at all besides one article with unsourced allegations?
No doubt the U.S. is behind behind this. But I'm getting damned tired of the shoddy journalism. I've seen so many claims that "the President has confirmed that the U.S. is behind the cyber attacks on Iraq nuclear facilities" with absolutely nothing to back them up. C'mon folks, stick to the facts.
This malware rocks. :-)
In five years time, Iran will have the best SCADA cyber security engineers in the world. I bet they will give this full priority. And when they have these skills, they have the skills to attack as well. Then think of what will happen. The US should better be sure that they are able to *destroy* those machines, so Iran cannot use them to test, otherwise... And how about Germany and Italy - are they still delivering systems to Iran? I wouldn't be surprised!
If it is true, it's bad news:
Assuming that the Stuxnet/Flame attackers are trying to avoid being detected and are not announcing their presence with cheap pranks, the report, if true, would mean someone else has broken into Iranian nuclear weapons research systems, and that it's someone so unprofessional and unskilled that they are doing it as a prank.
Those systems may contain data that nuclear proliferators would love. If they are that insecure, then everything the Iranians have learned could spread rapidly.
Hey government, so it's illegal when I share Thunderstruck with my friends, but it's OK for you to spend my tax dollars giving it away to douchebag weapons scientists who don't even like AC/DC? Whatever!
There's a pretty good analogy with automatic weapons in that I'm not allowed to "permanent loan" a buddy something shiny and fun without the tax stamp and going thru a FFL dealer, but foreign aid regularly delivers weapons to foreigners for free, even if the locals don't like the dictators thugs to be better armed. Its not all that unusual of a situation.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The Fifth Amendment provides an exception to sovereign immunity, allowing copyright owners to recover "just compensation" for the U.S. Government's use of their works.
I would go with AC/DC - T.n.t. instead lol
This reminds me of April 1st. I highly doubt anyone using malware to slow down or halt the Iranians nuclear efforts, would do it in a way that makes them clearly realize they're infected with something. That's more of a newbie prank or a troll ("unverified email" should keep this story from being news), than a real attempt to stop anything. The whole reason Stuxnext & Duqu were so successful is because of their ninja-like quietness in the systems.
from the RIAA over the money due each time this virus strikes, I mean sheesh, that could amount to a lot of cash right? And the recording industry is hurting what with the trillions of dollars they say they are losing every year to piracy. :P
Or maybe thats the idea, they will sic the RIAA on the Iranians and save the US military the effort
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
So from home, you would have posted as DC? :-)
(AC because I'm posting at work)
.mp3" show two completely different models of operating. There isn't anything like Defcon or Black Hat going on this week, is there? ;)
I wish I could use some of my mod points to mod parent up. "Using (or having insiders create) multiple 0-days for Stuxnet" vs. "Metasploit and proclaiming victory by playing a
(DC because I'm posting from my C64 on battery power from Afghanistan)
no
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I know, right! These mean Americans/Israelis won't let those poor Iranian regime leaders build their nuclear bombs! I cry myself to sleep at night.
Doesn't that violate the Geneva Convention's policy against torture?
Idiots.
The dude's trying to convince the morality police that he wasn't blasting AC/DC. Remember to plug in the earphones next time!
Evergreen!
Yes, sure, she has a pure, wonderful, beautiful voice, blah blah blah. But that's the point. In my experience, the notes she sings travel hundreds of yards down the corridor and infect everyone's office.
Play it over and over and over and over and over and ... people will be tearing their hair out. We could call it ... I don't know ... the Streisand Effect?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
is the R.I.A.A. going to be pissed. Good luck with that lawsuit.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
The words to a single song comprise a single lyric.
What? What?
I can't believe that we tricked their accountant into installing the virus.
It isn't nearly as bad if it was the band... now if it was the other AC/DC, then it would probably be worse.
The U.S. Government and Isreal Government for illegal performance of copyrighted materal.
Be seeing you...
I would have to say that this attack is not the same people. They were never so obvious in telling you that you've just been pwned.
Instead of going after Australia for their data retention law (which is pretty small potatoes compared to a nuclear device in the hands of a rogue state run by religious fanatics) why hasn't Anonymous gone after Iran? Iran can't build their weapon without computers and Anonymous has been basically overall useless, if not annoying, since they gave up on attacking Scientology.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
<rant>
Stuxnet, Duqu and Flamer-Skywiper being the previous iterations of the same Operation Project Olympic attack plan.
This is not a complete sentence; there's no verb.
Last month, President Obama's staff has admitted to the New York Times...
We use present perfect tense for referring to events that happened at an unspecified time in the past. You can't use it when you specify that the event happened last month.
...there is a joint Israel-U.S. cybermilitary operation was behind the mishaps Iranians have recently been suffering with their UF6 gas refining centrifuge systems in the Natanz and Fordo plants.
The rest of this sentence is too long and complicated. In addition, it has two verbs. Compounding the problem, the two verbs have opposing tenses.
I really do dislike grammar nazis, and I try to avoid ever saying anything about errors since I make plenty myself, but these kinds of errors are hard to read and understand. Timothy, do you even read things before they get posted?!
</rant, hopefully forever.>
Seriously, I do appreciate what all the /. editors do. It's hard to parse through all the article submissions that you get and make sure everything makes sense. It's also hard for us to parse the posted article summaries when the grammar mistakes make one's head spin.
May I respectfully suggest "Hell's Bells" for version 2.0?
"I don't think software should necessarily be free
Shit...owning your enemy's machines and blasting American music rather than quietly stealing their data...that's some serious psyops. They've got to be feeling vulnerable now.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Team America...Fuck Yea!
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The Men In Black
They've cloned Johnny Cash?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap!
I wonder if whoever did this arranged to pay AC/DC somehow or if the perpetrator stole copyrighted material. Hacking nuclear weapons facilities across international borders AND pirating a songs is a bad combination.
On the same side of thing. Who woulda thunk it? Iran wants to get the virus writers because of the damage to their nuclear program, the RIAA for unauthroized use of songs.
Make their computers play Shel nonstop. Ugh I can't even think of that. It's too horrible!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?