How Investigators Deciphered Stuxnet 131
suraj.sun tips a story at Wired that takes an in-depth look into how security researchers tracked down and worked to understand the infamous Stuxnet worm. The article begins:
"It was January 2010, and investigators with the International Atomic Energy Agency had just completed an inspection at the uranium enrichment plant outside Natanz in central Iran, when they realized that something was off within the cascade rooms where thousands of centrifuges were enriching uranium. But when the IAEA later reviewed footage from surveillance cameras installed outside the cascade rooms to monitor Iran's enrichment program, they were stunned as they counted the numbers. The workers had been replacing the units at an incredible rate — later estimates would indicate between 1,000 and 2,000 centrifuges were swapped out over a few months. The question was, why?"
Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:2, Insightful)
The part about the differences in loyalties of the Symantec researchers was telling, though.
"We don't care if this harms something important our country is doing to stop madmen from getting the Fist of God. We have customers to do business with!"
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:5, Insightful)
The part about the differences in loyalties of the Symantec researchers was telling, though.
"We don't care if this harms something important our country is doing to stop madmen from getting the Fist of God. We have customers to do business with!"
You're looking at this the wrong way; fighting computer viruses is akin to fighting biological viruses, it benefits everyone. Even if stuxnet was being used in some sort of covert fashion, you don't go around using viruses as weapons without having an effective vaccination/cure in place.
Re:Whats with the Layout? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:2, Insightful)
Madmen? Compared to what?
Last I checked, the only country claiming credit for Stuxnet was Israel, ie, a country that refuses international inspections of its atomic facilities and "neither confirms nor denies" that it has the bomb (confirming would mean losing US aid that is contingent on not developing these weapons). Israel also has a track record of invading other countries whereas Iran does not.
Measured by past actions, Israel is a far more dangerous country than Iran. It certainly has nukes, has a power mad and oppressive government that regularly ignores basic human rights, is warlike, and shows zero interest in making peace with its neighbours. Infecting 100,000+ computers with a virus and assassinating scientists in order to achieve its foreign policy objectives is exactly the kind of reckless behavior I'd associate with madmen.
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering the virus only infected the outdated type of centrifuge with the firmware that Iran was using...I think it was only benefiting Iran and Symantec's wallet.
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers can be reformatted and replaced.
Tel Aviv cannot.
The groups behind Stuxnet were prioritizing the risks of a surgical anti-nuclear proliferation strike as being worth the potential collateral damage. I think that was a prescient and reasonable decision, especially given Iran's irrationality and their hunger for nuclear weapons.
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:4, Insightful)
"Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the identity of the USS Liberty."
All the whining about how Israel was intentionally trying to sick the ship doesn't make any sense. Considering the efficiency of the Israeli military at getting these sorts of jobs done, there's no way they somehow didn't manage to sink the ship. If they had intended to do it, they would have done it. No question whatsoever.
The only explanation is that they attempted to destroy it with all due effort, and ceased attempting when they realized that they were attacking a friendly target. Considering they accidentally attacked a column of their own tanks the day before, it's not hard to imagine that they could make another similar mistake, especially given the craziness that was going on during those days.
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a troll.
You will note that according to TFA, the researchers didn't know it was targeted to sabotage an Iranian nuclear facility until the very end. And by the time anyone realized it was, the cat was out of the bag. Towards the end, it was only a matter of figuring out what specific facility was being targeted.
It is true these guys were suspicious the entire time that it was a government black ops operation. But that suspicion in and of itself says nothing. It could have been attacking anything, like Russian natural gas pipelines again, for all they knew. What they did know was that it was a virus designed to sabotage a controller used in industrial manufacturing. And as the Russian pipeline incident illustrates, that can have very serious consequences.
Imagine if someone sabotaged a manufacturing plant used to build commercial planes that would shorten its maintenance cycle or lifespan from the engineered specifications. Or one that sabotaged a vehicle tire manufacturing facility. Or high speed railway brakes. That would have been disastrous.
What their attitudes told me was that at the very real risk of personal health and safety, they did the entire civilized world a huge service by making their findings public. They revealed to the world the method by which a very real act of industrial sabotage happened, all the while knowing that it could land them dead. They put the duty of warning the entire world of such an attack vector before their own selves.
Sure, TFA says they were doing it for their customers. But that's a disingenuous way of looking at it. Because the customers who benefit the most from their disclosure are the same ones who manufacture physical equipment that must be within established guidelines, many of which are safety guidelines. And that means we, the people who operate the equipment or rely on such equipment to not fail unexpectedly are the ultimate beneficiaries.
To me, it puts them among the very few noble and honorable individuals left in the world. You may not care for such attributes in people, but I think there are still a few in the world who do. At the very least, I think most people wouldn't want to live in a world where everyone was petty and underhanded, as you seem to advocate by your comment. And I think they by their actions are greater believers of freedom than you by your weasel words.
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:2, Insightful)
Iran is not going to attack Israel. Even Ahmadinejad in his most insane moments would not attack Israel first. But it would play right into the madman's wet dream if Israel attacked Iran. Then Iran would basically be defending against Israeli aggression.
This is what Ahmadinejad believes. He believes that the return of the Mahdi will only happen when Iran is attacked by Israel. An attack the other way around would "void the prophecy".
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:3, Insightful)
You would put the Iranians above the Israelis? The Iranians are self declared anti semites who recently brutally repressed the self expression of their own people and have declared the US and Israel their enemy. The same people that round up jews and shoot them with firing squads? While Israel has been one of the few steadfast and erstwhile US allies in the middle east. Must be nice to be so poorly informed about reality. Here is the reality Israel is surrounded by anti semites that beat and repress their own people and specifically beat, repress, and generally mistreat women and execute gays. They share no common values with you lefty they would just as soon see you dead as to let a jew live. There is no difference between Iranians and pre WW2 european anti semites only difference is this modern group of anti semites is about to have the bomb. But no reason to worry about that I am sure.
Re:I do hope (Score:4, Insightful)
> In this case, if you read the article - it's fascinating (highly recommend!) - whether there were any 'wrongful acts' would seem to
>depend solely on perspective, and receiving a fair trail in Iran is somewhat of an oxymoron.
Right well... thats the point now isn't it.
> So the real question here is, is delaying Iran from making nuclear weapons (which they'd most use for mass murder) by a method
> that caused no loss of life itself (unlike a bombing), an act of evil? I guess that depends which side you're rooting for.
Well, only if you assume that the major purpose of this venture is a weapons program. The stated purposes are peaceful and lawful. It is also entirely likely that, even if a weapons program were hidden in the works, that the major effect will be peaceful power as, nobody has used a nuke in war in over 60 years, and I don't see that trend changing, whether they get them or not.
Honestly, I agree most with the assessments that say that the best way to deal with Iran is to give them the recognition that they want...and stop pulling stupid chest pumping adversarial tactics, and sabotaging what could be progress towards normalization of relations and, eventually their own reform. However, pulling this sort of shit plays right into the strong hand of those in Iran who would want weapons programs and oppose reform, and rebuilding trust with the rest of the world.
Its hard to argue with "they are out to get us, and see us as the enemy" when.... well... their shit gets sabotaged and we just grin and laugh at them. If this happened to the UK we would be doing everything we could to help catch any Americans involved.
Re:Possibly the coolest cyberwar article I've read (Score:5, Insightful)
But the stuxnet virus was out there on malware sites and could have been adapted to other uses. Figuring out what it did and how it worked was crucial in being able to stop it effectively.
Anti-Zionism != Anti-Semitism (Score:5, Insightful)
No one declares anti-semitism, but anti-zionism.
Zionism [wikimedia.org] is the political movement to re-establish the Jewish State, contradicting the scriptures about staying away... (Why keep Sabbath then?).
In any case, the Zionists waged war and won the land by force, then proceed to get rid of locals, who naturally resisted the invasion in any way they could. Lots of slaughtering and struggle in the process; oh yes, the Zionists did started with terrorism when the land was controlled by the UK... Were you not told about King David Hotel bombing [wikimedia.org]?
The methods the Israeli forces use are simply mass murdering people trapped and sieged in ghettos. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Yes, ethnic cleansing it is; and all sorts of air bombardment and land and even sea warfare against civilians, mostly armed with just rocks and pitiful glorified firecrackers. No NATO bombing, or no fly zones there... Thousands of innocent people die in Gaza, the UN doesn't care, even after Israel destroys UN facilities there.
Say what you like about Iran, they haven't dropped white phosphor cluster bombs against civilians, Israel has; everyone watched "Cast Lead". Israel once bombed a Nuclear power plant in Irak, but nothing of the sort has occurred to Israel from Irak. And before there were incidents like the Sabra and Shatilla massacre [wikimedia.org], guess who was involved? The current Prime Minister... Reality surpasses intentions.
Things like executions occur when you let religious extremists in power. It would be the same if you followed your traditions to the letter. Do not forget both religions have the same root, and Christianity as well. And all of them have committed atrocities in the past, and in that very same patch of land even.
The Islam scripture actually treat Jews (and Christians) with respect, and before the Zionists invaded, local Jews and Christians did live there just like they live in other countries.
You say Israel is "surrounded", No s*** Sherlock, Zionists invaded the land and waged war against all its neighbors (defeating them). Thats when a violent future for Israel was sealed; and you have fanatics killing their own leaders [wikimedia.org], when daring to reach peace after decades of bloodshed.
Zionists don't care about anything and anyone, they want their conquered land clean of Palestinians and anti-zionists and they don't care about the UN or even if the whole world declared war against them, they have the nukes ready [wikimedia.org] should they ever lose.
"Anti-semitism" is Zionist propaganda against anyone who dares think different.