Iran combats CIA malware attack against the middle east

[nameless]

BBC News - Iran 'finds fix' for sophisticated Flame malware

"Stuxnet is widely believed to have been written to target industrial equipment used in Iran's nuclear enrichment programme."

 

[Wade]

According to a story on the world this program may have be written and introduced into the affected computers as much as five years ago and set to go off at a specified point.

It was pondered by one of the interviewees (spl.) that if this vicious code was written over 5 years ago, just imagine what programmers are working on now.

 

[Randall]

BBC News - Iran 'finds fix' for sophisticated Flame malware

"Stuxnet is widely believed to have been written to target industrial equipment used in Iran's nuclear enrichment programme."

Widely believed by whom? I do a bit of computer tech work and sensationalist stories about malware programs aren't as sensational for me as because I know there are only so many commands to cause data to be either deleted or overwritten and only so many ways to cause that to happen, therefore hyping any malware as some kind of super sophisticated software is exaggerating. Does this mean that the CIA or NSA doesn't have the ability to engage in cyberwarfare? Of course not. Are they? Who isn't at some level? I'm more concerned about the locals ripping off my bank account with hacked pinpads and the like.

 

[nameless]

this is the modern face of national war fare. dont think it wont come and bite us all on the ass down the line.

 

[nameless]

Widely believed by whom? I do a bit of computer tech work and sensationalist stories about malware programs aren't as sensational for me as because I know there are only so many commands to cause data to be either deleted or overwritten and only so many ways to cause that to happen, therefore hyping any malware as some kind of super sophisticated software is exaggerating. .

http://www.crysys.hu/skywiper/skywiper.pdf

"1. Introduction
Our team at CrySyS Lab, Budapest was alerted in May 2012 of a targeted attack found in the wild. Below we summarize the investigation history and the current status of the forensic analysis.
1.1. Investigation
We have carried out an investigation in collaboration with several parties involved in incident response since we were alerted of the malware sKyWIper. Some of these parties involved may want to remain anonymous; therefore, references in the document are deliberately incorrect to avoid identification of the source of some information, data, sample, code, prototype, etc.
sKyWIper is too complex to be fully analyzed with our limited resources and time. Therefore, our investigations focused on the “big picture”, trying to get a first insight into the capabilities, behavior, encryption, data storage, propagation and communications of the malware. Much more work is needed to fully understand the details of the operation of the malware; however, as much debug/symbol information remains in the code, a detailed analysis seems to be feasible with additional resources and time."

 

[nameless]

theres been alot of this stuff in the press too;

Security backdoor found in China-made US military chip | Pakalert Press

 

[mike]

WASHINGTON -- Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies - WSJ.com

 

[Wade]

In a few cases when stories like this come up , the talking heads take great pains to point out that technically acts like this don't constitute war, its espionage. well my thinking is if you're doing something to disrupt a society's way of living or getting in the way of them accomplishing something ...It's war

How soon will it be before countries like the U.S., Russia and China get together to mash out somekind of agreement not unlike the various nuclear non-proliferation pacts and mutually assured destruction of the 70's and 80's, but in a cyberfield, and then we will need some kind of verification ability. of course, this doesn't answer the potentiality of a nationalist lone wolf causing trouble but one thing at a time. That's a somewhat humbling thought, in the good ole' days only a select few had the ability to reck havoc on a society, today likely tens of thousands of people do.

a good guy who usually gives straight talk on such matters...

Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine

Cyberwarfare: what Richard Clarke and other fearmongers get wrong. - Slate Magazine

 

[boomerang]

therefore hyping any malware as some kind of super sophisticated software is exaggerating.

I'm guessing the rumors and reports may themselves be part of the "great game" of political intrigue. Part of psyops is inducing your enemies to waste limited resources looking in wrong directions while what is really going on is elsewhere. Or there could be many other reasons.

Buy hey--I'm not an IT guy. I don't know what is possible in the binary world.

 

[dyingsun]

'Great game' indeed. Iran used and still uses german Siemens Systems in a lot of sensible operations aka their nuclear 'plant/s'. STUXNET Stuxnet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia couldn't have been made without intense knowledge of said Siemens systems in a reasonable amount of time (like last year) without spying or collaborating. Just saying.

 

[Wade]

This weeks (6/9/12) kal cartoon in the economist

KAL's cartoon | The Economist

 

[stonehart]

China Has The Ability To Shut Down All The Telecommunications Technology It Sold To America - Business Insider

 

[Wade]

Interesting news there stonehart, I liked the observation of one of the people who commented @ the bottom of the page, but I wouldn't be hanging my hat on that peg.

" Me'Ted on Jun 8, 5:05 PM said:
Who cares? We are all one solar fart (coronal mass ejection) away from the dark ages anyway..."

 

[boomerang]

I don't take the majority of reports on current events all that seriously because I assume them to be some kind of filtered cartoon that may or may not reflect what is really happening.
We know only as much as "they" choose to tell us about things that affect our future.

History is too replete with examples of this to think otherwise.

Gulf of Tonkin incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[taikonaut]

Stuxnet was targeted at PLC's which run proprietary code. The the worm just uses MS to get to the individual PLC's AFAIK. PLC's are part of a process chain.