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kreed
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I could be wrong, but something in this article doesn't feel right
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100921/ts_csm/327178
Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first
known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world
target a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.
The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study
since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm
about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security
experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a
cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical
world to destroy something.
At least one expert who has extensively studied the malicious
software, or malware, suggests Stuxnet may have already attacked its
target and that it may have been Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant,
which much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat.
The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer
security experts. Too large, too encrypted, too complex to be
immediately understood, it employed amazing new tricks, like taking
control of a computer system without the user taking any action or
clicking any button other than inserting an infected memory stick.
Experts say it took a massive expenditure of time, money, and software
engineering talent to identify and exploit such vulnerabilities in
industrial control software systems.
Unlike most malware, Stuxnet is not intended to help someone make
money or steal proprietary data. Industrial control systems experts
now have concluded, after nearly four months spent reverse engineering
Stuxnet, that the world faces a new breed of malware that could become
a template for attackers wishing to launch digital strikes at physical
targets worldwide. Internet link not required.
"Until a few days ago, people did not believe a directed attack like
this was possible," Ralph Langner, a German cyber-security researcher,
told the Monitor in an interview. He was slated to present his
findings at a conference of industrial control system security experts
Tuesday in Rockville, Md. "What Stuxnet represents is a future in
which people with the funds will be able to buy an attack like this on
the black market. This is now a valid concern."
A gradual dawning of Stuxnet's purpose
It is a realization that has emerged only gradually.
Stuxnet surfaced in June and, by July, was identified as a
hypersophisticated piece of malware probably created by a team working
for a nation state, say cyber security experts. Its name is derived
from some of the filenames in the malware. It is the first malware
known to target and infiltrate industrial supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) software used to run chemical plants and factories
as well as electric power plants and transmission systems worldwide.
That much the experts discovered right away.
But what was the motive of the people who created it? Was Stuxnet
intended to steal industrial secrets pressure, temperature, valve,
or other settings and communicate that proprietary data over the
Internet to cyber thieves?
By August, researchers had found something more disturbing: Stuxnet
appeared to be able to take control of the automated factory control
systems it had infected and do whatever it was programmed to do with
them. That was mischievous and dangerous.
But it gets worse. Since reverse engineering chunks of Stuxnet's
massive code, senior US cyber security experts confirm what Mr.
Langner, the German researcher, told the Monitor: Stuxnet is
essentially a precision, military-grade cyber missile deployed early
last year to seek out and destroy one real-world target of high
importance a target still unknown.
"Stuxnet is a 100-percent-directed cyber attack aimed at destroying an
industrial process in the physical world," says Langner, who last week
became the first to publicly detail Stuxnet's destructive purpose and
its authors' malicious intent. "This is not about espionage, as some
have said. This is a 100 percent sabotage attack."
A guided cyber missile
On his website, Langner lays out the Stuxnet code he has dissected. He
shows step by step how Stuxnet operates as a guided cyber missile.
Three top US industrial control system security experts, each of whom
has also independently reverse-engineered portions of Stuxnet,
confirmed his findings to the Monitor.
"His technical analysis is good," says a senior US researcher who has
analyzed Stuxnet, who asked for anonymity because he is not allowed to
speak to the press. "We're also tearing [Stuxnet] apart and are seeing
some of the same things."
Other experts who have not themselves reverse-engineered Stuxnet but
are familiar with the findings of those who have concur with Langner's
analysis.
"What we're seeing with Stuxnet is the first view of something new
that doesn't need outside guidance by a human but can still take
control of your infrastructure," says Michael Assante, former chief of
industrial control systems cyber security research at the US
Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory. "This is the first
direct example of weaponized software, highly customized and designed
to find a particular target."
"I'd agree with the classification of this as a weapon," Jonathan
Pollet, CEO of Red Tiger Security and an industrial control system
security expert, says in an e-mail.
One researcher's findingsLangner's research, outlined on his website
Monday, reveals a key step in the Stuxnet attack that other
researchers agree illustrates its destructive purpose. That step,
which Langner calls "fingerprinting," qualifies Stuxnet as a targeted
weapon, he says.
Langner zeroes in on Stuxnet's ability to "fingerprint" the computer
system it infiltrates to determine whether it is the precise machine
the attack-ware is looking to destroy. If not, it leaves the
industrial computer alone. It is this digital fingerprinting of the
control systems that shows Stuxnet to be not spyware, but rather
attackware meant to destroy, Langner says.
Stuxnet's ability to autonomously and without human assistance
discriminate among industrial computer systems is telling. It means,
says Langner, that it is looking for one specific place and time to
attack one specific factory or power plant in the entire world.
"Stuxnet is the key for a very specific lock in fact, there is only
one lock in the world that it will open," Langner says in an
interview. "The whole attack is not at all about stealing data but
about manipulation of a specific industrial process at a specific
moment in time. This is not generic. It is about destroying that
process."
So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 industrial control
systems around the world, without blowing them up although some
victims in North America have experienced some serious computer
problems, Eric Byres, a Canadian expert, told the Monitor. Most of the
victim computers, however, are in Iran, Pakistan, India, and
Indonesia. Some systems have been hit in Germany, Canada, and the US,
too. Once a system is infected, Stuxnet simply sits and waits
checking every five seconds to see if its exact parameters are met on
the system. When they are, Stuxnet is programmed to activate a
sequence that will cause the industrial process to self-destruct,
Langner says.
Langner's analysis also shows, step by step, what happens after
Stuxnet finds its target. Once Stuxnet identifies the critical
function running on a programmable logic controller, or PLC, made by
Siemens, the giant industrial controls company, the malware takes
control. One of the last codes Stuxnet sends is an enigmatic
DEADF007. Then the fireworks begin, although the precise function
being overridden is not known, Langner says. It may be that the
maximum safety setting for RPMs on a turbine is overridden, or that
lubrication is shut off, or some other vital function shut down.
Whatever it is, Stuxnet overrides it, Langners analysis shows.
"After the original code [on the PLC] is no longer executed, we can
expect that something will blow up soon," Langner writes in his
analysis. "Something big."
For those worried about a future cyber attack that takes control of
critical computerized infrastructure in a nuclear power plant, for
instance Stuxnet is a big, loud warning shot across the bow,
especially for the utility industry and government overseers of the US
power grid.
"The implications of Stuxnet are very large, a lot larger than some
thought at first," says Mr. Assante, who until recently was security
chief for the North American Electric Reliability Corp. "Stuxnet is a
directed attack. It's the type of threat we've been worried about for
a long time. It means we have to move more quickly with our defenses
much more quickly."
Has Stuxnet already hit its target?It might be too late for Stuxnet's
target, Langner says. He suggests it has already been hit and
destroyed or heavily damaged. But Stuxnet reveals no overt clues
within its code to what it is after.
A geographical distribution of computers hit by Stuxnet, which
Microsoft produced in July, found Iran to be the apparent epicenter of
the Stuxnet infections. That suggests that any enemy of Iran with
advanced cyber war capability might be involved, Langner says. The US
is acknowledged to have that ability, and Israel is also reported to
have a formidable offensive cyber-war-fighting capability.
Could Stuxnet's target be Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, a
facility much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat?
Langner is quick to note that his views on Stuxnet's target is
speculation based on suggestive threads he has seen in the media.
Still, he suspects that the Bushehr plant may already have been
wrecked by Stuxnet. Bushehr's expected startup in late August has been
delayed, he notes, for unknown reasons. (One Iranian official blamed
the delay on hot weather.)
But if Stuxnet is so targeted, why did it spread to all those
countries? Stuxnet might have been spread by the USB memory sticks
used by a Russian contractor while building the Bushehr nuclear plant,
Langner offers. The same contractor has jobs in several countries
where the attackware has been uncovered.
"This will all eventually come out and Stuxnet's target will be
known," Langner says. "If Bushehr wasn't the target and it starts up
in a few months, well, I was wrong. But somewhere out there, Stuxnet
has found its target. We can be fairly certain of that."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100921/ts_csm/327178
Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first
known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world
target a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.
The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study
since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm
about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security
experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a
cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical
world to destroy something.
At least one expert who has extensively studied the malicious
software, or malware, suggests Stuxnet may have already attacked its
target and that it may have been Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant,
which much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat.
The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer
security experts. Too large, too encrypted, too complex to be
immediately understood, it employed amazing new tricks, like taking
control of a computer system without the user taking any action or
clicking any button other than inserting an infected memory stick.
Experts say it took a massive expenditure of time, money, and software
engineering talent to identify and exploit such vulnerabilities in
industrial control software systems.
Unlike most malware, Stuxnet is not intended to help someone make
money or steal proprietary data. Industrial control systems experts
now have concluded, after nearly four months spent reverse engineering
Stuxnet, that the world faces a new breed of malware that could become
a template for attackers wishing to launch digital strikes at physical
targets worldwide. Internet link not required.
"Until a few days ago, people did not believe a directed attack like
this was possible," Ralph Langner, a German cyber-security researcher,
told the Monitor in an interview. He was slated to present his
findings at a conference of industrial control system security experts
Tuesday in Rockville, Md. "What Stuxnet represents is a future in
which people with the funds will be able to buy an attack like this on
the black market. This is now a valid concern."
A gradual dawning of Stuxnet's purpose
It is a realization that has emerged only gradually.
Stuxnet surfaced in June and, by July, was identified as a
hypersophisticated piece of malware probably created by a team working
for a nation state, say cyber security experts. Its name is derived
from some of the filenames in the malware. It is the first malware
known to target and infiltrate industrial supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) software used to run chemical plants and factories
as well as electric power plants and transmission systems worldwide.
That much the experts discovered right away.
But what was the motive of the people who created it? Was Stuxnet
intended to steal industrial secrets pressure, temperature, valve,
or other settings and communicate that proprietary data over the
Internet to cyber thieves?
By August, researchers had found something more disturbing: Stuxnet
appeared to be able to take control of the automated factory control
systems it had infected and do whatever it was programmed to do with
them. That was mischievous and dangerous.
But it gets worse. Since reverse engineering chunks of Stuxnet's
massive code, senior US cyber security experts confirm what Mr.
Langner, the German researcher, told the Monitor: Stuxnet is
essentially a precision, military-grade cyber missile deployed early
last year to seek out and destroy one real-world target of high
importance a target still unknown.
"Stuxnet is a 100-percent-directed cyber attack aimed at destroying an
industrial process in the physical world," says Langner, who last week
became the first to publicly detail Stuxnet's destructive purpose and
its authors' malicious intent. "This is not about espionage, as some
have said. This is a 100 percent sabotage attack."
A guided cyber missile
On his website, Langner lays out the Stuxnet code he has dissected. He
shows step by step how Stuxnet operates as a guided cyber missile.
Three top US industrial control system security experts, each of whom
has also independently reverse-engineered portions of Stuxnet,
confirmed his findings to the Monitor.
"His technical analysis is good," says a senior US researcher who has
analyzed Stuxnet, who asked for anonymity because he is not allowed to
speak to the press. "We're also tearing [Stuxnet] apart and are seeing
some of the same things."
Other experts who have not themselves reverse-engineered Stuxnet but
are familiar with the findings of those who have concur with Langner's
analysis.
"What we're seeing with Stuxnet is the first view of something new
that doesn't need outside guidance by a human but can still take
control of your infrastructure," says Michael Assante, former chief of
industrial control systems cyber security research at the US
Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory. "This is the first
direct example of weaponized software, highly customized and designed
to find a particular target."
"I'd agree with the classification of this as a weapon," Jonathan
Pollet, CEO of Red Tiger Security and an industrial control system
security expert, says in an e-mail.
One researcher's findingsLangner's research, outlined on his website
Monday, reveals a key step in the Stuxnet attack that other
researchers agree illustrates its destructive purpose. That step,
which Langner calls "fingerprinting," qualifies Stuxnet as a targeted
weapon, he says.
Langner zeroes in on Stuxnet's ability to "fingerprint" the computer
system it infiltrates to determine whether it is the precise machine
the attack-ware is looking to destroy. If not, it leaves the
industrial computer alone. It is this digital fingerprinting of the
control systems that shows Stuxnet to be not spyware, but rather
attackware meant to destroy, Langner says.
Stuxnet's ability to autonomously and without human assistance
discriminate among industrial computer systems is telling. It means,
says Langner, that it is looking for one specific place and time to
attack one specific factory or power plant in the entire world.
"Stuxnet is the key for a very specific lock in fact, there is only
one lock in the world that it will open," Langner says in an
interview. "The whole attack is not at all about stealing data but
about manipulation of a specific industrial process at a specific
moment in time. This is not generic. It is about destroying that
process."
So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 industrial control
systems around the world, without blowing them up although some
victims in North America have experienced some serious computer
problems, Eric Byres, a Canadian expert, told the Monitor. Most of the
victim computers, however, are in Iran, Pakistan, India, and
Indonesia. Some systems have been hit in Germany, Canada, and the US,
too. Once a system is infected, Stuxnet simply sits and waits
checking every five seconds to see if its exact parameters are met on
the system. When they are, Stuxnet is programmed to activate a
sequence that will cause the industrial process to self-destruct,
Langner says.
Langner's analysis also shows, step by step, what happens after
Stuxnet finds its target. Once Stuxnet identifies the critical
function running on a programmable logic controller, or PLC, made by
Siemens, the giant industrial controls company, the malware takes
control. One of the last codes Stuxnet sends is an enigmatic
DEADF007. Then the fireworks begin, although the precise function
being overridden is not known, Langner says. It may be that the
maximum safety setting for RPMs on a turbine is overridden, or that
lubrication is shut off, or some other vital function shut down.
Whatever it is, Stuxnet overrides it, Langners analysis shows.
"After the original code [on the PLC] is no longer executed, we can
expect that something will blow up soon," Langner writes in his
analysis. "Something big."
For those worried about a future cyber attack that takes control of
critical computerized infrastructure in a nuclear power plant, for
instance Stuxnet is a big, loud warning shot across the bow,
especially for the utility industry and government overseers of the US
power grid.
"The implications of Stuxnet are very large, a lot larger than some
thought at first," says Mr. Assante, who until recently was security
chief for the North American Electric Reliability Corp. "Stuxnet is a
directed attack. It's the type of threat we've been worried about for
a long time. It means we have to move more quickly with our defenses
much more quickly."
Has Stuxnet already hit its target?It might be too late for Stuxnet's
target, Langner says. He suggests it has already been hit and
destroyed or heavily damaged. But Stuxnet reveals no overt clues
within its code to what it is after.
A geographical distribution of computers hit by Stuxnet, which
Microsoft produced in July, found Iran to be the apparent epicenter of
the Stuxnet infections. That suggests that any enemy of Iran with
advanced cyber war capability might be involved, Langner says. The US
is acknowledged to have that ability, and Israel is also reported to
have a formidable offensive cyber-war-fighting capability.
Could Stuxnet's target be Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, a
facility much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat?
Langner is quick to note that his views on Stuxnet's target is
speculation based on suggestive threads he has seen in the media.
Still, he suspects that the Bushehr plant may already have been
wrecked by Stuxnet. Bushehr's expected startup in late August has been
delayed, he notes, for unknown reasons. (One Iranian official blamed
the delay on hot weather.)
But if Stuxnet is so targeted, why did it spread to all those
countries? Stuxnet might have been spread by the USB memory sticks
used by a Russian contractor while building the Bushehr nuclear plant,
Langner offers. The same contractor has jobs in several countries
where the attackware has been uncovered.
"This will all eventually come out and Stuxnet's target will be
known," Langner says. "If Bushehr wasn't the target and it starts up
in a few months, well, I was wrong. But somewhere out there, Stuxnet
has found its target. We can be fairly certain of that."