Stuxnet: Computer worm opens new era of warfare

McGurk: They opened up the box. They demonstrated the capability. They showed the ability and the desire to do so. And it's not something that can be put back.

Kroft: If somebody in the government had come to you and said, "Look, we're thinking about doing this. What do you think?" What would you have told them?

McGurk: I would have strongly cautioned them against it because of the unintended consequences of releasing such a code.

Kroft: Meaning that other people could use it against you?

McGurk: Yes.

Kroft: Or use their own version of the code?

McGurk: Something similar. Son of Stuxnet, if you will.

As a result what was once abstract theory has now become a distinct possibility.

Kroft: If you can do this to an uranium enrichment plant, why couldn't you do it to a nuclear power reactor in the United States or an electric company?

O Murchu: You could do that to those facilities. It's not easy. It's a difficult task, and that's why Stuxnet was so sophisticated, but it could be done.

Langner: You don't need many billions, you just need a couple of millions. And this would buy you a decent cyberattack, for example, against the U.S. power grid.

Kroft: If you were a terrorist group or a failed nation state and you had a couple of million dollars, where would you go to find the people that knew how to do this?

Langner: On the Internet.

Kroft: They're out there?

Langner: Sure.

Most of the nation's critical infrastructure is privately owned and extremely vulnerable to a highly sophisticated cyberweapon like Stuxnet.

Sen. Susan Collins: I can't think of another area in Homeland Security where the threat is greater and we've done less.

After several failures, Congress is once again trying to pass the nation's first cybersecurity law. And once again, there is fierce debate over whether the federal government should be allowed to require the owners of critical infrastructure to improve the security of their computer networks. Whatever the outcome no one can say the nation hasn't been warned.

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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.