Anatomy of a Computer Virus

That TED link was very impressive. Thanks for that.

If that shit don't make you wanna change all your passwords and go hide in the corner I dunno what will :eek:
 
Good stuff, both videos. I liked that he thought it was fortunate that the USA was the global cyberspace power in the linked video by hescominsoon.
 
wow... so this probably also a bit explained what could have cause the japanesse nuclear power plant trouble :eek:
 
Welcome to the digital age, rule #1 if you have something of EXTREME sensitivity, best way to defend against hackers is NOT TO HAVE AN EXTERNAL CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET.

Seriously, everyday stuff - internet ok, top secret/classified/
 
...edit the fuck!

Seriously, everyday stuff - internet ok
top secret/classified/computer that could cause a nuclear meltdown - internet not ok, in fact make sure that there's no way to access this with any machine that has access to the internet, FFS make sure there's no internal connections at all, USB, Floppy drive, anything!
 
With the shit that is been going on you would think important systems would go closed circuit.
 
sfsuphysics said:
...edit the fuck!

Seriously, everyday stuff - internet ok
top secret/classified/computer that could cause a nuclear meltdown - internet not ok, in fact make sure that there's no way to access this with any machine that has access to the internet, FFS make sure there's no internal connections at all, USB, Floppy drive, anything!
Click to expand...

These vital systems probably are not live connected to the internet and the US government instituted a no USB stick policy not too long ago...possibly because of stuxnet (cause we made it or a reaction to it)...floppy drives are a rarity now from what ive seen.


I DO like how at the end the guy emphasises that in his opinion, fortunately, its American made cause otherwise the world could be in for a total shit storm.
 
sfsuphysics said:
...edit the fuck!

Seriously, everyday stuff - internet ok
top secret/classified/computer that could cause a nuclear meltdown - internet not ok, in fact make sure that there's no way to access this with any machine that has access to the internet, FFS make sure there's no internal connections at all, USB, Floppy drive, anything!
Click to expand...

In the Video it was mentioned that it was probably not a connection to the Internet but more likely transferred to the centrifuge controller by the computer used to configure the centrifuge controller.
 
Here's a lengthy video of a microsoft employee explaining how this worm infects a windows machine, if one machine in a network is infected by the end of the day the whole network will be infected, its quite a sophisticated worm.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOwMW6agpTI"]YouTube - ‪27C3: Adventures in analyzing Stuxnet (Bruce Dang from Microsoft)‬‏[/ame]
 
Here's a good book to give to your Dad for Father's Day;

Cyber War
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Cyber-War-Threat-National-Security/dp/0061962236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308280396&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It (9780061962233): Richard A. Clarke, Robert Knake: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ts-uKilyL.@@AMEPARAM@@51ts-uKilyL[/ame]

Just a matter of time until someone gets past our defense.
 
I'll have to see what the TED video says but this video does seem to touch on some things I read on wikipedia about Stuxnet.

If I remember correctly; it was seemingly targeted at Iran and definitely designed to infect Siemens controls equipment and Iran was basically screwed because the Siemens equipment was likely illegally sold to them so obviously they can't get official support for it.

I could see it being either the US or Israel but I think that with it being so successful it had some very professional help behind it such as Siemens or someone that had written controls software in the past because I doubt anyone just wakes up one day and knows how to manipulate controls systems without having years of experience with them.
 
It could have been all the above working together:

US govt. goes to Siemens with intel on grey-market controls and works with Siemens to recruit hackers from Cornell (Engineering School with highest population of Jews).

Last year non-latin URL support was added to the interwebz, so you can now type chinese, arabic, and other characters in and get a website.

The problem that I see in the future is Iran now sits on the second largest hacker army in the world. Thats some badass Shi'ite right there!!! Lol.
 
10 min after watching the video, it started to replay with the volume cranked. I went back to the finished video tab and closed it, even though it wasn't playing at all. Nothing. I went through all my tabs and there wasn't a sing page open to the vid. Went to Task Manager to find the application and close it, but there wasn't one. Muting volume worked, but wasn't a fix. Creeped me out so I rebooted. That seemed to fix the problem. It gave me a good freak-out considering the topic, and I have never experienced anything like it before. Yikes!!!!:eek:
 
sfsuphysics said:
Welcome to the digital age, rule #1 if you have something of EXTREME sensitivity, best way to defend against hackers is NOT TO HAVE AN EXTERNAL CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET.

Seriously, everyday stuff - internet ok, top secret/classified/
Click to expand...

The power plant systems in Iran were not connected to the internet. The Stuxnet virus was spread through tweaked shortcut icons stored on flash drives.
 
The most worrying prospect is the proliferation of open source virus derivatives that would land themselves in critical installations via social engineering (which isn't hard unfortunately) and used to wage either total war or to threaten a population. Imagine what would have happened if the French power grid had been totally compromised and all the nuclear powerplants held ransom... and then imagine the rain of Graphite powder dust filled with all that 'good stuff' across the European continent...
 
funkydmunky said:
10 min after watching the video, it started to replay with the volume cranked. I went back to the finished video tab and closed it, even though it wasn't playing at all. Nothing. I went through all my tabs and there wasn't a sing page open to the vid. Went to Task Manager to find the application and close it, but there wasn't one. Muting volume worked, but wasn't a fix. Creeped me out so I rebooted. That seemed to fix the problem. It gave me a good freak-out considering the topic, and I have never experienced anything like it before. Yikes!!!!:eek:
Click to expand...

n00b!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;):D
 
Frankly this is amazing, but I have to ask, what good Irani would put a Jewish sub contractor in house.
This had to be constructed by an American.
 
undertheradar said:
US govt. goes to Siemens with intel on grey-market controls and works with Siemens to recruit hackers from Cornell (Engineering School with highest population of Jews).
Click to expand...

Because no other US person would have an interest in hacking Iran, unless they were Jewish. :rolleyes:
 
Reimu said:
The most worrying prospect is the proliferation of open source virus derivatives that would land themselves in critical installations via social engineering (which isn't hard unfortunately) and used to wage either total war or to threaten a population. Imagine what would have happened if the French power grid had been totally compromised and all the nuclear powerplants held ransom... and then imagine the rain of Graphite powder dust filled with all that 'good stuff' across the European continent...
Click to expand...

Most scenarios such as this remain just so much fear-mongering, zero-days are not exactly a dime a dozen although they're more common than anyone would wish.

Stuxnet may not have been made by the U.S. or Israel (or both in conjunction), but it certainly had a ton of man hours put into its creation. So much so that extremely few entities would have the time or inclination to do something like it.

The bigger worry for me personally is the continued development of botnets. We've known of the inadequacy of passwords for years, the only thing that has made them even tolerable most of the time is the time it would take to brute force them.

If someone were to create say..a distributed password cracking utility that could be run on one of the larger botnets say goodbye to any password that doesn't lock out your account after a few failed attempts. This is made even scarier if rootkits of the sort HBGary was discussing creating (12 monkeys) are actually feasible.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Because no other US person would have an interest in hacking Iran, unless they were Jewish. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Really? You make a comment like that? Did you even listen to the video?:eek:

Well, the US, Siemens, and Israel were mentioned as the top suspects that made the virus, Israel because there are parts in the code that have to do with Hebrew script. So in my effort to make a possible yet slightly absurd three-way combination of those that I thought would be easy enough for everyone to follow, I said Jews that would work for Siemens in cooperation with the US government. Now though, since I can no longer assume you can follow the train of thought here, I should mention that there are alot of Jews in Israel as well, and Hebrew is their religion... get it now :rolleyes: ?

Just in case, I also made a joke about some "badass Shi'ite" that you may not have gotten too. See, that was a word play on profanity with the word Shi'ite, which is the name for one of the two main branches of the Muslim religion, the one also being the dominant branch in Iran. If you didn't catch that part (you do seem to miss some big parts), now you got it. Dont forget to order the heat sink on your next computer build, ok?:D
 
undertheradar said:
Really? You make a comment like that? Did you even listen to the video?:eek:

Well, the US, Siemens, and Israel were mentioned as the top suspects that made the virus, Israel because there are parts in the code that have to do with Hebrew script. So in my effort to make a possible yet slightly absurd three-way combination of those that I thought would be easy enough for everyone to follow, I said Jews that would work for Siemens in cooperation with the US government. Now though, since I can no longer assume you can follow the train of thought here, I should mention that there are alot of Jews in Israel as well, and Hebrew is their religion... get it now :rolleyes: ?

Just in case, I also made a joke about some "badass Shi'ite" that you may not have gotten too. See, that was a word play on profanity with the word Shi'ite, which is the name for one of the two main branches of the Muslim religion, the one also being the dominant branch in Iran. If you didn't catch that part (you do seem to miss some big parts), now you got it. Dont forget to order the heat sink on your next computer build, ok?:D
Click to expand...

The references you make to the 'hebrew script' in the code are most likely false flags, and the investigation into stuxnet has for the most part now received universal acceptance that they are in fact false flags and that there is no evidence in the code itself as to its source. The suspicions come from politics, patterns of distribution, and probably characteristics of cyberwarfare I don't know anything about and am thus not credible to speculate on.

I don't know (and don't want to either) what the deal between you and twistedaegis is, but you do know you are VERY rude.right? You should probably try and tone down the 'douchebag' rhetoric in the things you say/write. I know for sure that if you had spoken like that around me or any of my friends you'd have a fat lip right now given by any of us (o and did I mention me and all my friends are PhD chemists who ... don't fight/hurt people ... that's how much of a dick you sound like man !)
 
3:00 upper play-ground. It's on!
Open palm windmill slapping will be allowed. Please remove pocket protectors and eye-wear.

Oh, and for the record anything we know about stuxnet, is and will be filtered by any body that has propagandized this information. Be careful what you read sheep. Before you get locked into your facts understand disinformation is rampant and always will be. ;)
 
HiTech-Hate said:
The references you make to the 'hebrew script' in the code are most likely false flags, and the investigation into stuxnet has for the most part now received universal acceptance that they are in fact false flags and that there is no evidence in the code itself as to its source. The suspicions come from politics, patterns of distribution, and probably characteristics of cyberwarfare I don't know anything about and am thus not credible to speculate on.

I don't know (and don't want to either) what the deal between you and twistedaegis is, but you do know you are VERY rude.right? You should probably try and tone down the 'douchebag' rhetoric in the things you say/write. I know for sure that if you had spoken like that around me or any of my friends you'd have a fat lip right now given by any of us (o and did I mention me and all my friends are PhD chemists who ... don't fight/hurt people ... that's how much of a dick you sound like man !)
Click to expand...

I wasn't being serious in the first place. It would be rude if you take away the part about me joking (a smart guy like you saw that, right?). Im making light of the video's conclusions (not to be confused with my own) by using sarcasm, and my response was also sarcastic. I also added smiley emoticons to diffuse any anger. HiTech made a comment that could be seen as making me look like Im anti-semetic simply because he didn't pay attention to the video. I thought it would be best to diffuse any such suspicions, and yes, I used sarcasm.

Now you are either sensitive to sarcasm or think I was being serious, and have joined in by escalating things with a thinly veiled threat that pretty much says "you are a douche & we would beat you up" which sounds just plain stupid. Well, "my daddy is bigger than your daddy" (happy fathers day), so 6'5" @ 270lbs of muscled me says I would say it in front of you and your friends and they would most likely laugh because they would get the sarcasm. If any of them did take offense to what I said despite their higher learned minds, I would hope that being PhD's would make them smart enough to not resort to violence (or threats) just because someone "sounds like a dick", and if you or your buddies really want to sacrifice your fists on my jawbone be my guest, it will hurt you more than me most likely, and it would make you look stupid in the process. I dont know why you are using your friends' education level as some sort of qualification of collective passificity, but I suspect it was more to make yourself sound smart despite the stupid crap you wrote otherwise. How about PhD's in EE... any assumptions about me you would like to share about me because of my education? :D
 
funkydmunky said:
3:00 upper play-ground. It's on!
Open palm windmill slapping will be allowed. Please remove pocket protectors and eye-wear.

Oh, and for the record anything we know about stuxnet, is and will be filtered by any body that has propagandized this information. Be careful what you read sheep. Before you get locked into your facts understand disinformation is rampant and always will be. ;)
Click to expand...

Lol, pocket protector. Someone just commented that today; They knew me socially for 10 years and just found out Im an EE. He shook his head and said "My God, you are like a GIANT NERD!... I dont get it, you are like this big guy who drives a little car (the woman has a turbo beetle which is what he saw that day) and is a giant nerd!" Just goes to show you about judging a book by its cover.

Im changing my theory though since its being taken too seriously. I now suspect Kim Jong Il worked with Aliens to make Stuxnet. Oh, And the French... its always the French. Baaaaaaa!! :p
 
undertheradar said:
I now suspect Kim Jong Il worked with Aliens to make Stuxnet. Oh, And the French... its always the French. Baaaaaaa!! :p
Click to expand...

Sounds like your saying you work for Fox News, except you forgot to mention "tin-foil hat" wearing red-necks! :D
Change of theory? Hey folks maybe we have the propaganda artist right here.
 
funkydmunky said:
Sounds like your saying you work for Fox News, except you forgot to mention "tin-foil hat" wearing red-necks! :D
Change of theory? Hey folks maybe we have the propaganda artist right here.
Click to expand...

No, we here at Fox News love our bible-thumpin' appalacians. They believe anything we say, as long as its 5 words or less or if we say its because God said so.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Welcome to the digital age, rule #1 if you have something of EXTREME sensitivity, best way to defend against hackers is NOT TO HAVE AN EXTERNAL CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET.

Seriously, everyday stuff - internet ok, top secret/classified/
Click to expand...

Interestingly, the computer college i went to was trying out all sorts of digital tech, usually based off student thesis and projects. If they think the inventory system developed by a student was good, they can make something based off it and implement it in their own system.

The most secure room of all? The student records room. It's filled floor to ceiling with envelopes and a guy that does nothing but search through them all day. Not a computer in sight. The whole thing will probably fit on a single disk, but with a campus full of hundreds of teenage programmers and hardware engineers, what are you gonna do?
 
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