Computer worm cripples Iranian nuclear ambitions...

[Kulaf]

For over 1 year a computer worm apparently gave the Iranians fits:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/ ... ambitions/

Very cool stuff.

[Ddrak]

I dunno - Fox is making one hell of a lot of assumptions in that article. There's very little evidence that stuxnet actually did anything, much less to Iran's centrifuges. It's all a possibility but that's about it.

Some more reliable info:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2 ... t_wor.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2 ... uxnet.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2 ... _news.html

Symantec's complete analysis of the code:
http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/e ... ossier.pdf

Dd

[Kulaf]

Well there is a lot of speculation because there are only a few verifiable facts. But I think the number of infections by region showing Iran as the primary target is rather telling.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Wasnt there indications that this code has also gotten into other industrial processes?

[Ddrak]

Well there is a lot of speculation because there are only a few verifiable facts. But I think the number of infections by region showing Iran as the primary target is rather telling.

Oh, for sure. I've heard some discussion about those numbers not being quite as skewed as they initially appear because Iran uses US virus checkers while other nations use their own and so don't actually report infections back. There still appears to be code that favors Iranian IP blocks within the spreading algorithms so there's strong indications it was engineered to do something.

I'm just not so sure it was deliberately sent. Why tip off that you can achieve this sort of thing for a 3-4 month delay in their work? Just doesn't seem to have the cost-benefit ration you'd be looking for on something that's bound to be noticed all over the world. If anything I'd have to guess that it was an proof-of-concept thing that was set loose by mistake.

Embar: Yes. It infected a lot of systems all over the world (including in the US and Israel from what I understand) but there's been no reported ill effects on any of those systems. The payload does seem restricted to a very specific type of motor control PLC, hence the strong speculation that it was really targeted at Iranian centrifuges.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

From what I've listened to on NPR, the code causes certain frequency monitors to report that everything is ok, but simulataneously speed up and slow down motors controlled by the infected software. One can see just how devasting that would be to centrifuges.