Weaponized Malware

For those of you who haven't heard (I saw a report of Fox News as well as an article on yahoo), Stuxnet, a piece of malware that essentially targeted software that is used to run industrial systems, such as a water management plants, electric grid, and nuclear plants, is a essential a weapon used to take out a particular system. What that means is when/if this worm found its target, it would cause some type of action that would destroy it. While to my knowledge researchers have not found what it will actually do, some possible things that it could do is cut the cooling water to machinery which causes it to overheat and burn up, stop supplying lube oil to gears to wreck the machinery, or even more sinister things like put too much of a given chemical in the water supply. Welcome to a new world.

I wouldn't be surprised as security researchers spend more time reverse enginering the malware that they keep finding more nuances that haven't seen before in malware. The sophistication of the malware leads researchers to believe it was created by a government or a highly, highly organized, well-funded group. My only hope is the US created it, if not, we need to develop these capabilities in a hurry.


The suspected target of the malware is an Iranian nuclear plant because of the concentration of infected systems within Iran. To add further to this theory is the fact that the plant should have been up and running but has been postponed for unknown reasons. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but sometimes there are one too many coincidences. Considering the fact that Isreal has said they will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, this sophisticated worm may have prevented a war or at the very least delayed it a while.
 
PS: USB drives are thought to be the method the worm was introduced and spread since the nuclear plant's control systems are not accessible through the Internet.