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Stuxnet Source Code

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Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#121

Post by d1sxeyes »

mablopoule wrote: post #94
jerrygenser wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept is featured in The Dark Forest, the second book in the Three Body Problem trilogy. It was something where you could genetically tag someone and then if they woke up 50 years later from a chrono sleep, various systems were preprogrammed to have "accidents" around them, like self driving cars, etc.

It's also in the (1998) Metal Gear Solid game, where the protagonist is the unknowing carrier of a virus deadly only to specific key people.

I was about to comment “hey, spoiler alert”, but then I realised that you’re talking about a game released a quarter of a century ago. More time has passed since MGS came out than passed between the Ramones’ first gig and MGS’s release. Mad.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#122

Post by aeldidi »

jonahrd wrote: post #58

I remember reading a very well written article on stuxnet, detailing the entire way it worked. It was written in a very story-like way that built slowly until it revealed what the actual payload and impact was. Does anyone have a link to this article?

Most likely this. I vividly remember reading this the first time I had heard about STUXNET.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-sophisticated-piece-o...

edit: someone beat me to it, I just didn't notice since it wasn't a direct link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38518286

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#123

Post by nextaccountic »

odyssey7 wrote: post #56
johndunne wrote: post #8

I remember first hearing about this while working at a US firewall company. The scale and precision of the attack kept this virus in the minds of everyone who appreciated what it proved capable of and the scale of social engineering employed to effect it. It kind of ushered in state-on-state cyber warfare, or at least, brought the reality of weaponized viruses to the public conscience.

Imagine if the same strategy were applied to biological warfare. Novel viruses tailored to be symptomatic and cause harm to just one specific world leader. If the technology exists, it could be the most formidable assassination tool available; a self-delivering, non-nuclear ace-in-the-hole for winning a war.

Targeting a specific individual may not be possible, but targeting an ethnicity might be practical

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#124

Post by namaria »

moontear wrote: post #20
wiz21c wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nuclear plant is just as weaponizable as any large dam...

Is it? The nuclear fallout of a plant may linger for longer than any destruction done by the water of a large dam I would say or do you mean something else?

A dam failure was caused by the nationalistic Chinese government fighting against Japanese forces in the 30s. It killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Do you have an example of nuclear energy plant being weaponized to the tune of hundreds of thousands of deaths?

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#125

Post by cies »

kafrofrite wrote: post #31
cies wrote: post #21

In Iran the copyrights of foreign works are not well protected. This lead to a lot of copying: western software and books are/were available for little more than the price of the writable CD-ROM or paper+ink you got it on. Translations of works were slightly more expensive, that the translator did have to get paid. Since Windows (etc.) was free, and the university thought curriculum based largely on US uni-books, Win…

I'm not a fan of Windows but Stuxnet didn't happen because of Windows. Iran decided to spin up a nuclear program and Israel and the US had concerns and wanted to stop it. They had the resources to develop something tailored for this unique situation, which included windows, Siemens PLCs (IIRC), Centrifuges etc. and developed the malware based on their target. Even if their target used a different stack, they'd find a…

It's all about price. Attacking Linux will be harder, thus more expensive.

You make it sound easy, if that was the case they'd launch one attack every few months or so. This stuff is expensive, and making it 100x harder means 100x less attacks before the budget runs out.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#126

Post by randomcarbloke »

ranting-moth wrote: post #100
randomcarbloke wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't really need the centrifuge, just the inverter. I was working in industrial control and automation at the time, there were sweeping changes to what could and could not be done and by whom at every level. Old drives of all manufacturers that sat unused were audited and had to be brought up-to-date before any sale or change of hands could occur, serials were noted etc etc. Never felt like a manufacturer decisi…

>You don't really need ... I think that project was way beyond the "really need" stage.

granted, I don't know that it would give you any extra information though.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#127

Post by rereasonable »

meeuwer wrote: post #27
rereasonable wrote: post #12

Technical wonder aside, the argument for using nuclear power over fossil fuels really hits a faultline in situations like this. I wonder how the majority of folk rationalise their viewpoint surrounding this situation without being seen as massively hypocritical?

The exploited software is conveniently developed and controlled by Iran’s adversaries. In another episode of the geopolitical sabotage show, “In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, accor…

Yep, don't run your centrifuges on windows 98 is probably sound advice.

>In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions..

Ooh now you've got me thinking about Chernobyl...

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