Stuxnet, gone rogue, hits Russian nuke plant and infects International Space Station
43 replies, posted
I find Stuxnet really interesting, mostly because it shows an extremely large vulnerability with most operating systems that is failing to be addressed. Just by disguising a a USB memory stick as a Human Interface Device you can pretty much run any code you want automatically with no user prompt...
[QUOTE=Tomthetechy;42844717]What exactly is Stuxnet? I've searching it up but it's either too in depth or not in depth enough. Who created it and why?[/QUOTE]
Various US and Israel agencies created Stuxnet together.
Stuxnet targeted nuclear facilities in Iran, targeting various industrial equipment (including uranium centrifuges). If it got to a computer attached to a piece of the targeted equipment, Stuxnet would change its rotational speed to permanently damage it (among other things, Stuxnet also installed a rootkit on the equipment itself, and intercepted any attempts to diagnose or shut down malfunctioning equipment). On a computer that does not have these very specific pieces of software Stuxnet is effectively harmless (it actually specifically disables itself if the software is not found in an effort to hide).
It's probably the most well-known malware that was explicitly created for cyber-warfare.
[QUOTE=Tomthetechy;42844717]What exactly is Stuxnet? I've searching it up but it's either too in depth or not in depth enough. Who created it and why?[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet[/url]
United States and Israel wanted to bully Iran again. Its a worm that spreads through windows computers and when it finds [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens"]Siemens[/URL] control systems it A. Makes the control systems think there are problems and initiate emergency shutdowns and B. sends data back to its source, the U.S. and Israel.
It's infamous due to the now confirmed claim that the U.S. and Israel were behind it and because of how complex it was. The strange thing is that most versions were meant to erase themselves in 2012 so I'm a little confused from this story. Maybe they released yet another version or some third party remixed their own version.
[QUOTE=spiritlol;42844900]The strange thing is that most versions were meant to erase themselves in 2012 so I'm a little confused from this story. Maybe they released yet another version or some third party remixed their own version.[/QUOTE]Perhaps it was a version being studied by Russia. They changed the termination date or removed the function so they could continue to study it, and it accidentally slipped out.
[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;42842546]And has Iranian nuclear centrifuges on board.[/QUOTE]
what do you think the reaction wheels are for
yeah sure, it went "rogue"
they don't have Avast! on ISS and Kaspersky AV in Russian Nuclear Plant ?
{facepalm}
[QUOTE=woaka;42842663]I remember this virus, it infected nuclear power plants in the US a while ago. Would randomly force the computers to play ACDC songs.[/QUOTE]
Thunderstruck actually increases electrical output, what a terrible virus
"It's dormant" they say "It won't do anything wrong" they say, "don't worry about it, it just messes around" they say.
Man, have any of you played Pandemic 2? First it's just a cough and then it somehow has every single symptom on this side of the galaxy.
We should heed to this warning and just nuke everything, therefore it can't sabotage everything.
isn't Stuxnet supposed to disable itself at June 2012?
How the fuck is it possible to hide a file on a usb stick?
Is it completely unheard of for programmers of viruses to include a backdoor or RAT in their virus even if that's not the intended effect? I don't understand why you guys are saying that it can ONLY affect centrifuges, it's a virus I'm sure that the guys who made it put some other "fun" features into it too.
also considering our current relationship with the Russians, and the state of the NSA/other unnamed spying orgs It is totally reasonable to me that we did this to make sure the Russians aren't working on some super-nuke that we don't know about or something.
[QUOTE=cucumber;42846798]isn't Stuxnet supposed to disable itself at June 2012?[/QUOTE]
Are you saying that today is not November 13th, 2013? Jeez, I've been living a lie
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