Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon yet deployed
How do outsiders stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Sanctions? Bombing? Support street protestors? Actually: computer worms.
We're still having to rethink the art of war in the information age.
Read more about Stuxnet on wikipedia.
The worm initially spreads indiscriminately, but includes a highly specialized malware payload that is designed to target only Siemens Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes.
Unlike most malware, Stuxnet does little harm to computers and networks that do not meet specific configuration requirements. Symantec noted in August 2010 that 60% of the infected computers worldwide were in Iran.
The attacks seem designed to force a change in the centrifuge’s rotor speed, first raising the speed and then lowering it, likely with the intention of inducing excessive vibrations or distortions that would destroy the centrifuge. If its goal was to quickly destroy all the centrifuges in the FEP, Stuxnet failed. But if the goal was to destroy a more limited number of centrifuges and set back Iran’s progress in operating the FEP, while making detection difficult, it may have succeeded, at least temporarily.
On 23 November 2010 it was announced that uranium production at Natanz had ceased several times because of a series of major technical problems. A "serious nuclear accident" occurred at the site in the first half of 2009.
Symantec estimates that the group developing Stuxnet would have consisted of five to ten people and as many as 30, and would have taken six months to prepare.
