FROM THE ARTICLE... The Stuxnet virus that damaged Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility was worse than we thought. In fact, Ralph Langner, a cyber security Relevant Products/Services expert, described it as “far more dangerous than the cyberweapon that is now lodged in the public’s imagination.” Claimed by some to be a joint project between the U.S. and Israel, Stuxnet garnered worldwide attention when it destroyed about a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. But according to Langner the story behind the story is that Stuxnet is not really one weapon, but there exist two versions of the virus. “The vast majority of the attention has been paid to Stuxnets smaller and simpler attack routine -- the one that changes the speeds of the rotors in a centrifuge, which is used to enrich uranium,” Langner wrote in Foreign Policy magazine. “But the [older version of Stuxnet] is about an order of magnitude more complex and stealthy.” [...] Shier noted another interesting point from the report -- Stuxnet didnt necessarily exploit vulnerabilities so much as features. As he sees it, this is a scary proposition insofar as the weapon didnt rely entirely on novel discoveries but turned the system on itself. “I would use the rough analogy that instead of cutting someones brakes, youre making the accelerator stick,” he said. “This kind of action is a paradigm shift from most of the exploits that we see which typically try to break something. Anyone with a thorough understanding of the target can potentially use it against itself.”
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 23:03:49 +0000
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