Friday, November 19, 2010

No Invasion Needed. Stuxnet Did the Job

Iran doesn't have a nukes program any more.

Seems that the Israelis invented "Stuxnet," a virus which infects motor-controllers.

But Stuxnet only does its dirty work in IRANIAN motor-controllers which happen to control the centrifuge motors in Iranian nuke-materials plants.

It does nasty stuff to motors: race, stop, race, stop, race, stop........(etc.) until the motor goes "poof!"

Beats losing 4,000 troops over there.

3 comments:

neomom said...

This was so incredibly cool. Whoever pulled it off - pure genius.

The kicker was that it targeted specific Siemens products - used by the Iranians. So it doesn't harm other stuff.

The flip side is it makes one wonder what is that vulnerable here.

Bernard Brandt said...

I had wondered why the Israelis did not do a reprise of their bombing of the Osirak breeder reactor in Iraq.

I am so happy to see that they had managed to do a less labor intensive version of the same thing.

Dad29 said...

Neo--most ladder-logic controllers are equally vulnerable, as is the entire oil/gas pipeline complex and many electrical-distribution network controllers (SCADA).

This is not exactly new. The Iranians--well, let's put it this way: not everybody in Iran is a fan of I'maDinnerJacket. STUXNET was imported via an external memory device.

In this country, the vulnerability of SCADA controls was known around 10 years ago. Nobody's talking about 'hardening' them, which means that they are being hardened.