How Stuxnet cyber weapon targeted Iran nuclear plant

[jpak]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1116/How-Stuxnet-cyber-weapon-targeted-Iran-nuclear-plant

Stuxnet, the world's first known “cyber missile,” was designed to sabotage special power supplies used almost exclusively in nuclear fuel-refining centrifuge systems, researchers studying its code have revealed. The discovery is another puzzle piece experts say points to Iran's nuclear centrifuge plants as the likely target.

While the discovery may seem just another bit of circumstantial evidence, it is a critical one that appears to all but answer a central mystery surrounding Stuxnet: What was its target?

Stuxnet was discovered in June by a Belarus antivirus company, and its unique ability to control industrial processes was uncovered by US researchers in July. But its true role as the world's first publicly known cyber super weapon – designed to cross the digital divide and destroy a very specific target in the real world – was only revealed in September.

Even then, the target was mostly an informed guess. Was Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant or its nuclear centrifuge fuel-refining plant at Natanz the target, as some suggested? Or was it something quite different, like the big Indian-made satellite that failed dramatically in July?

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Are US nuclear plants just as vulnerable to cyber attack?

:shrug:

[Trajan]

1. ANY government that still maintains pathways between ...

critical infrastructure ... and the notoriously susceptible 'internets' ....

Any government that doesn't switch it's critical infrastructure control and monitoring facilities to some secure network, unavailable to the public, isn't worth keeping in office .....

I find it extremely naive to think one can place nuclear facility control processes 'online', and then expect it to remain unmolested ...

[phantom power]

2. One interesting thing about stuxnet was, it would hitchike on flash-drives.

This thing was designed to take as long as it took, and was opportunistic. It would make its way onto flash drives, and if somebody put one into the appropriate system, it would make its move.

[Trajan]

3. Ah .... Now that you mention it ...

I do recall that was how they said it was introduced ...

It's actually quite ingenious ....