Threat of highly sophiscated cyber weapon against infrastructures is now reality

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.


"The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

At least one expert who has extensively studied the malicious software, or malware, suggests Stuxnet may have already attacked its target – and that it may have been Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, which much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat.

The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer security experts. Too large, too encrypted, too complex to be immediately understood, it employed amazing new tricks, like taking control of a computer system without the user taking any action or clicking any button other than inserting an infected memory stick. Experts say it took a massive expenditure of time, money, and software engineering talent to identify and exploit such vulnerabilities in industrial control software systems."

This is indeed a hugely important occurance.

If it is attacked, Iran has threatened to retaliate with an attack on all important targets in the gulf belonging to its enemies and the allies of its enemies.

However it seems it has been attacked, but not by physical force, instead there are reports of 60,000 of its computers containing Malware, but apparently the virus hasnt caused major problems!?



At the moment it is hard to figure out how much damage has been done, let alone what the outcome will be, can Iran even fully retailate? or has its weapons systems been attacked in the same manner that Syrias were a while ago

will be watching this one closely

China is hit too.

Asymptote said:

The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer security experts. Too large, too encrypted, too complex to be immediately understood, it employed amazing new tricks, like taking control of a computer system without the user taking any action or clicking any button other than inserting an infected memory stick.

Click to expand...

Why is this amazing? This happens all the time.

israel use computer virus to shut down syria air defense system,during there attack against intelligent believe to be nuclear reactor under construction.
computer virus may have come from USAF, according to atimes.com USAF developed the computer virus as part of there "grand safari" program.
during the bombing of serbia, US uses computer virus against serbian airdefense system, but the outcome still not yet known.

challenge said:

israel use computer virus to shut down syria air defense system,during there attack against intelligent believe to be nuclear reactor under construction.
computer virus may have come from USAF, according to atimes.com USAF developed the computer virus as part of there "grand safari" program.
during the bombing of serbia, US uses computer virus against serbian airdefense system, but the outcome still not yet known.

Click to expand...

That is not true. Electronic warfare is not just sending computer virus... there are more to it.

In actual fact, no one actually know for sure how Israel defeated Syria's ADS, because no information is available... and all that was on net was nothing but speculation. (ref: )

Once again... for the umpteenth time, don't state something without any backing.

Superbug that attacked 6 mn computers in China traced to US

BEIJING: The much-feared new cyber-weapon, the 'Superbug', which has attacked over six million personal and almost 1,000 corporate computers in has been traced to the US, official media reported today.

The Stuxnet cyberworm can break into computers and steal private information, especially from industrial firms, sending it back to a server in the , state-run quoted Wang Zhantao, an engineer at the Beijing-based , an antivirus service producer in China, as saying.

The super virus made use of a bug in Siemens auto-control systems used in industrial manufacturing to skip the security check, Wang who has been vastly quoted in the local media for the past few days, said.

The virus can copy itself and spread via U-disk in the network of a company and government.

"Hackers may take control of a company's machinery run under computers infected by Stuxnet, and give dangerous orders causing serious damage," he said.

The company has developed softwares to kill the virus, which can be downloaded for free from the company's official website, he said.

Official media has been carrying reports about the superbug virus for the past few days said it contained sophisticated malicious software, or malware, believed to be a "new cyber-weapon," which infiltrates mainly factory computers in China threatening the country's national security.

The Stuxnet worm was first discovered in mid-June and was specially written to attack Siemens supervisory control and data (SCADA) systems commonly used to control and monitor industrial facilities - from traffic lights and oil rigs to power and nuclear plants, state run Global Times daily reported few days ago.

"This malware is specially designed to sabotage plants and damage industrial systems, instead of stealing personal data. It will seriously threaten pillar industries in China, which has 420 million internet users," Wang said.

"Once Stuxnet successfully penetrates factory computers in China, those industries may collapse, which would damage national security," he said adding that it posed no harm to personal computers or Internet surfers.

Well most countries like the Russian Fed , China and even India is already on the path to establish cyber defense systems....in fact there was a news bit recently about PLA officers being trained in Cyber Warfare....both offensive and defensive aspects of it....however the report went on to mention that while the Chinese offensive capability was quite credible its defensive shields were porous and could be easily penetrated by a foreign agency.....this Worm attack originating from the U.S is quite likely to have covert U.S govt backing....with a purpose to probe how robust the Chinese Cyber defense is....

Well i found two interesting pieces that could add to this thread.



The idea that Israel was responsible is a theory that has been spread around the net for a while now, though I think its just as likely it was done to implicate Israel, or just naive to think another culture wouldn't use biblical references.



Incidentally the US has finally made their own cyber warfare department operational, so perhaps it was in fact a US weapon.

I must say so far there's just no credible source that can reliably say were the worm originated. There's a lot of possibilities that may even have some merit, but nothing even is close to being conclusive.
I've read one article saying the worm showed up in India, disabling some kind of satcom system so indian sat users now have to use a chinese sat, wich suggests China is behind the attack to help it's own industry.
Basicly, up until now the whole world is responsible for this thing with the intent of harming every other country on the planet.
Another article somewhere claimed that stuxnet actually hit it's itended target already in january and wasn't therefore detected for half a year.

Whatever it is, it at least seems to be a really sophisticated thing that most likely hints at a national departments work that is either tested or actually at work. This incident is now probably an eye opener to the broad public I suspect, so a lot more people will get a climpse of how vulnerable a modern IT based society can be.