Stuxnet: Computer worm opens new era of warfare

Langner: We knew at this time that the highest number of infections had been reported in Iran. And second, it was pretty clear, just by looking at the sophistication, that there would be at least one nation state behind this. You know, you just add one and one together.

By the fall of 2010, the consensus was that Iran's top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz was the target and that Stuxnet was a carefully constructed weapon designed to be carried into the plant on a corrupted laptop or thumb drive, then infect the system, disguise its presence, move through the network, changing computer code and subtly alter the speed of the centrifuges without the Iranians ever noticing. Sabotage by software.

O Murchu: Stuxnet's entire purpose is to control centrifuges. To make centrifuges speed up past what they're meant to spin at and to damage them. Certainly it would damage the uranium enrichment facility and they would need to be replaced.

Kroft: If the centrifuges were spinning too fast, wouldn't the operators at the plant know that?

O Murchu: Stuxnet was able to prevent the operators from seeing that on their screen. The operators would look at the screen to see what's happening with centrifuges and they wouldn't see that anything bad was happening.

It now seems likely that by the time O Murchu and Langner finally unraveled the mystery in November of 2010, Stuxnet had already accomplished at least part of its mission. Months before the virus was first detected, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had begun to notice that Iran was having serious problems with its centrifuges at Natanz.

O Murchu: What we know is that an IAEA report said that 1,000 to 2,000 centrifuges were removed from Natanz for unknown reasons. And we know that Stuxnet targets 1,000 centrifuges. So from that, people are drawn to the conclusion well Stuxnet got in and succeeded. That's the only evidence that we have.

Kroft: The only information that's not classified?

O Murchu: Yes.

And there are lots of things about Stuxnet that are still top secret.

Kroft: Who was behind it?

O Murchu: What we do know is that this was a very large operation. You're really looking at a government agency from some country who is politically motivated and who has the insider information from a uranium enrichment facility that would facilitate building a threat like this.

Kroft: An intelligence agency probably?

O Murchu: Probably.

Langner: We know from reverse engineering the attack codes that the attackers have full, and I mean this literally, full tactical knowledge of every damn detail of this plant. So you could say in a way they know the plant better than the Iranian operator.

We wanted to know what Retired General Michael Hayden had to say about all this since he was the CIA director at the time Stuxnet would have been developed.

Kroft: You left the CIA in 2009?

Hayden: 2009. Right.

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[ubiquitate]

remember that Matthew Broderick movie from the 80s, Wargames...yes, it's a brave new world. :)

[TheStolenGiraffe]

This stuff is straight out of the movie "Die Hard: Live Free or Die Hard". No doubt an attack like this will be used to instill fear that will enable congress to swiftly pass laws that will censor and regulate the internet.

[Jhihmoac]

What's next? Destructive AI software like the fictional Skynet in the "Terminator" movies? Scary stuff...

[fedup12]

This is scary to me. I think we should take the billions we borrow to give away in aid and spend it on computer security.

[frank597]

I did not like Steve Kroft story on stuxnet. For one thing, it is not good to blast our cyber attacks around, or any intelligence initiative for that matter. the tone of the piece was that somehow we have woken up other nations to start thinking about cyber attacks, where before they were just innocently bopping along unawares. Ridiculous!! China for one is just as aggressive in this regard and I'm sure all countries with the capability are working as hard as they can in that direction. What I took away from this story is that Congress is wimping out by still having no requirement to tighten cyber security arount critical infrastructure, I guess they will wake up after we take a major catastrophy. Typical. At a mimimum, we all need to move to IPv6 to get a security infrastructure in place to build on. DO IT!!!

[karek40]

Note, the writers of this code had to have intimate knowledge of every facet of the operation, what equipment, what controllers, etc. How many know the workings of our power grid. If it goes off the air briefly (unless it is really really cold) no major harm done. This happens in different localized areas annually due to storms. I suppose it would be possible to turn off the cooling water in a nuclear generating station, but most of ours are so old that I doubt if they are computer controlled, probably temperature operated valves.

[smittyc]

Adds another dimension to flying on a plane. Just imagine the terrorist sending a mail while a plane is in flight which can disrupt the computers in a commercial flight. This is far from a improbable scenerio, look at the drones and heliocopters that have mysteriously crashed over the last several years not to mention the military jet crashes. I'd say these types of attacks are in full swing right now.

[thechooch1]

smittyc now days planes are flown by humans, except drones. Humans just simply take control if something like an attack on the onboard computers were to happen. That is why we still have pilots.

[beancube2010]

So everybody should have IP filter service which prompts which IP should be allowed or blocked and shows the stack about which executable used that IP. When desperate, with just a mouse click you can stop all traffics as well. Then with that IP info it is your payback time.

[foo8259]

What I found most interesting about the Stuxnet code was the several "Zero Day" Windows exploits it employed. It just goes to show if you still use the Windows OS, keep it patched and updated. Me, well I use kubuntu linux :)

[foo8259]

Just use nux -- problem solved. Stuxnet was somewhat sloppy and rushed code; possibly too infectious for its own good, which led to an early discovery of the worm. I think Win32-Duqu is an improvement, even if not the perfect Trojan -- it's tight efficient code with multiple backups and an redundant intelligence.