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Iran Allegedly Hit By Computer Virus More Violent Than Stuxnet (timesofisrael.com)
TTL0 shares a report from The Times of Israel: Iranian infrastructure and strategic networks have come under attack in the last few days by a computer virus similar to Stuxnet but "more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated," and Israeli officials are refusing to discuss what role, if any, they may have had in the operation, an Israeli TV report said Wednesday. "Remember Stuxnet, the virus that penetrated the computers of the Iranian nuclear industry?" the report on Israel's Hadashot news asked. Iran "has admitted in the past few days that it is again facing a similar attack, from a more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated virus than before, that has hit infrastructure and strategic networks." The Iranians, the TV report went on, are "not admitting, of course, how much damage has been caused." On Sunday, Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran's civil defense agency, said Tehran had neutralized a new version of Stuxnet, Reuters reported. Stuxnet penetrated Iran's nuclear program, "taking control and sabotaging parts of its enrichment processes by speeding up its centrifuges," the report notes. We'll update this story when more details become available.
This virus is so powerful it even hacked Slashdot to fuck up your post title.
more advanced AND more sophisticated?
DAMN...
For looking at Burka pr0n on work machines.
Our entire economy is integrated with computers now. Throwing open the doors on destructive attackâ(TM)s to cripple a govt/economy is just stupid, we are way more vulnerable to this shit and no we do not have adequate protections in place.
We're talking about command&control systems of chemical plants, nuclear power plants, hospitals, cars, trains, elevators, etc., not your average home computer. In this case, they've probably destroyed some costly centrifuges.
How is this not an act of war? Then again, Israel is constantly engaged in acts of war against Iran.
The more features software has the better. Eventually it will become so complicated that even the virus writers will not be able to understand it.
But writing Stuxnet was an appalling thing to do because it legitimized state sponsored computer attacks as being legitimate and non-military. The west cannot take high moral ground about them having launched Stuxnet against Iran. And Stuxnet only slowed them down by a few months anyway, despite being extremely clever. It also escaped, and was discovered in Russia, by memory.
So the only thing to do is spend lots more money on cyber warfare. So I guess the Stuxnet team was extremely successful in achieving that, its real goal.
A computer virus may stop your computer from working but its not "violent" - its not going to walk up and punch you.
With the "internet of things" now, who knows?
It may try to microwave you or slam your garage door on you, anyway ...
If it's anything like Stuxnet in terms of how it operates then the payload will be extremely specific to the environment it was targeting - e.g. require a specific control app, managing, a given make/model of PLC, connected to a given type of mechanical/electrical plant, and so on. What it might potentially do is provide victims with access to one or more zero-day vulnerabilities for those tools/products they may not have been previously aware of if they can successfully reverse engineer them, but they'd still need to repurpose those to their own ends, find suitable targets, and design their own payloads. The clock on that is also ticking, because copies of the code will get out into the security community at large, and once that happens CVE numbers will eventually get assigned and patches produced. Stuxnet might still be revealling hidden depths, but it's highly unlikely that most of the delivery mechanisms it employed would still be effective in delivering payloads anywhere except for locations that have almost no concept of security and the importance of software/firmware updates.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Stuxnet managed to do almost the same, but to ultracentrifuges used to enrich uranium.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
It specifically targetted Siemens controllers the Iranians had bought. It ensured that for the future the Iranians would either buy American controllers on the black market or use non-western controllers which there was a lesser chance of the US/Israel having source code to.
The Germans were pissed about Stuxnet as it killed their market for controllers around the world.
**Life is too short to be serious**
He was handing out infected USB drives.
No real reason for him to be there given he has no official post in the US govt anymore so maybe hes supplementing his retirement with a little freelance cyberterrorism
**Life is too short to be serious**
Canada. Canada is the only country that could do this AND get away with it. Who'd think Canada? That's laughable. But it's so ridiculous that it was Canada that it HAS to be Canada.
A computer virus may stop your computer from working but its not "violent" - its not going to walk up and punch you.
No, but if a foreign country did it to us and it caused enough of a crippling to one of our infrastructure projects or caused enough economic damage you could bet our politicians would complain about it being "an act of war". Even with some of the more minor hackings done by China, and Russia a few politicians have made some such comments. If something as big as Stuxnet hit us, I think the majority would want some form of retaliation.
However, if Iran retaliates against Israel or the US (or whoever else is to blame) for this, you can bet they will be bombed and blamed as the aggressors.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Stuxnet messed with industrial process controls, and supposedly caused things like centrifuges to spin at self-destructive speeds. Depending on how this new one actually works and what it affects, "violent" might not be as inaccurate as you think.
Log in or piss off.
Whataboutism. And perhaps you are aware of this little thing we call 9/11? And all the anti-American bobbing going back long before as well as after. The OP has a point. You do not.
Hadash is the Hebrew word for "new". Hadashot literally translates to "news".
I'm writing this from the perspective of an American, and I am no fan of Iran. Iran has a terrible religious fundamentalist regime that murders people and exports terror throughout the Middle East, to include attacking Israel. But I am sick and tired of being told by our pols that Iran is our mortal enemy, and represents a grave national security threat that needs to be attacked and destroyed. Especially when those same pols supports a different middle eastern country that has a terrible religious fundamentalist regime that murders people and exports terror throughout the Middle East and occasionally to Lower Manhattan.
It's about nuclear weapons!!! But we support another Moslem nation that also has nuclear weapons, has live-tested them, gone to war with their neighbor multiple times, supported our enemies in Afghanistan, and is coincidentally where we found Osama Bin Laden's hiding place. So Iran can't have nuclear weapons, but the other one can? At least we know who's in charge in Iran. I'm not too sure who's really in charge in that other nuclear-armed Moslem country, it could be the military on Monday and Thursday, the civilians on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the clerics on Friday. They all take the weekend off.
Maybe it's human rights??? But our "allies" just dismembered a journalist and have been waging a criminal bombing campaign in Yemen. No big deal, according to our President, who reminded us that Journalist was a moslem immigrant (green card holder), and then proudly exclaimed how much money our "friends" were spending on weapons, basically putting a price on the head of that journalist, anyone with a green card (including my wife), and all Yemenis. The President never struck me as especially intelligent, but he knew the price of those weapons down to the last nickel, so maybe he's a "stable genius" after all, especially when it comes to people giving him money.
What's the difference? One chants "death to Israel" so much that it has become cliche and supports Hezbollah, lobbing mortars into Israel and occasionally funds a suicide bomber. The other one exports Wahhabism, brainwashing one person at a time, including Mohamad Atta and a few hijackers who came to America and took up flying. The cynic in me believes the difference is one country is good for business, the other is not. I hope some day people will realize Iran is not our enemy and never will be our friend. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are not our "friends" or our "allies", but shouldn't me made into enemies. We need to get realistic about the Middle East and above all else be consistent. Either we're for human rights or against them. But we can no longer have it both ways.
Back in the 80s. IBM brought out a new harddrive they claimed was bulletproof.
Somebody figured the platter resonance frequency and 'tacoma narrows bridged' it with head motion during a demo.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'