Stuxnet Virus Engineered by U.S. and Israel

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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A published report from the New York Times has confirmed the speculation which has surrounded the development of the Stuxnet virus: the project was a joint effort by the U.S. and Israel known as the “Olympic Games”.

The U.S. worked with an Israeli team to create an early variant of Stuxnet, which was programmed to target Siemens equipment and destroy centrifuges being used to purify uranium.
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In the end I don't think I was surprised at all by this release.

Stuxnet was very high level and very targeted. Who was against
Iran in that situation and time the most? It was us and Israel.

I fully expect Win32.Fire to be the shot over in bow in return once
that code gets disassembled completely also. Its only a matter
of time before the big kids playing in the sandbox show where money
makes better viruses, and thats really the end of it all.
 
Cyber War is immanent. So the US and Israel are going for Gold uh? How long will it take for the government to come out and say 'Flame' was also a US creation some 5 years ago?

This type of thing is only going to get deeper and more drawn out as civilizations become more infused with technology.
 
This may also explain why some countries are locking down their internet, and/or may be a reason why there are going to be more that will also set up their own "uber firewalls" in the future.
 
The thing is what happens when these targeted viruses get out into the wild?? I know you cannot just copy and paste stuxnet or flame into your own creations or modify them slightly to create someone's uber malware, (for one alot of the vulnerabilities that stuxnet used to gain entry into systems have been patched up) but it surely gives a big leg-up to malware creators and helps them explore new and innovative avenues to compromise peoples machines.

Stuxnet, Flame, these things will come back to bite everyone's collective rectums. Someone, somewhere who's clever enough will use them against the general populous.
 
Sly said:
This may also explain why some countries are locking down their internet, and/or may be a reason why there are going to be more that will also set up their own "uber firewalls" in the future.
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While I understand the point you're making, good ol' fashioned "boots on the ground" espionage isn't going anywhere. I'd be more interested to see countries setting up firewalls AND banning usb ports. :D
 
"The Internet is out of control, look at all these hackers and other scumbags everywhere! WE need to legislate it!!!"

"Woops eh guys we leaked some malware all over it hehe"
 
fenixv said:
While I understand the point you're making, good ol' fashioned "boots on the ground" espionage isn't going anywhere. I'd be more interested to see countries setting up firewalls AND banning usb ports. :D
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They should just roll out some Windows 7 user group policies...
 
There's been alot of speculation that it was the USA and Israel, even rumors of an Israeli military officer mentioning it at his retirement party or something (don't remember specifics). Kind of sad it's actually true.
 
@Action_Parsnip
Actually, stuxnet did. According to the article, it was never meant to leave the facility. There were a lot of discussions about how the virus could have gotten into the plant in the first place. One of them is that it piggybacked on an engineers laptop and got in that way. That was generally accepted, even tho the odds of that happening at random is incredibly small.

However it does make sense if the engineers laptop was actually how the virus got out and spread into other facilities with the same equipment.

Rather ironic that people were wondering how it got in, when it was actually the source of the infection.

@fenixv
Well, the uber firewall is a first thing i'd set up if i was expecting a cyber attack. After that i'd require the ISP's to start doing extended logging on their traffic (They already do it, all you have to do is pull some teeth to get them to give it up). That way, if someone was hacking from within the country, i can easily trace him back to his source even if he was spoofing his address. To go even further, i'd require all government and critical facilities (military enforced if necessary), to have each computer terminal require a login, along with my own cadre of hackers watching all the possible vectors for unnusual traffic within the facilities. They may now know all the possible ways to hack, but if you've taken Computer Science, you'd know that each computer system works off specific principles and human behaviour, so the possibilities are not infinite, and you'll usually know what to look for.

There are a ton of work needed to actually get that to work, but it's where i'd start. :)
 
PornoSatan said:
There's been alot of speculation that it was the USA and Israel, even rumors of an Israeli military officer mentioning it at his retirement party or something (don't remember specifics). Kind of sad it's actually true.
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Well we could just go back to plan A) Bomb the shit out of stuff.
 
So using a non lethal means of ensuring That IRAN does not get the A-Bomb is Sad? Would you rather we use force? Or would you rather IRAN get a bomb and use it? They constantly say their goal is to destroy Isreal.
 
The difference between Iran and North Korea is that they are different countries, and Iran is a lot better off in infrastructure and being a threat.

(Did this piece of news surprise anybody?)
 
Az Syndicate said:
So using a non lethal means of ensuring That IRAN does not get the A-Bomb is Sad? Would you rather we use force? Or would you rather IRAN get a bomb and use it? They constantly say their goal is to destroy Isreal.
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Oh come on, as if they ACTUALLY would use it. They are perfectly aware their state would be turned into glass in retaliation. If you reply what if they got one and gave it to some terrorist group I would say 1) They'd be found out in the end and be invaded 2) I'd worry *far more* about Pakistan and how safely those nukes are stashed. It's a state within a state and the inner one is not a friend of the West.
 
So does this mean people / companies can send the US government the bill for damages?

even tho it was always suspected, it really disgusts me that it's true. Justify it however you want, the US is good at that (weapons of mass destruction anyone?) Iran has done nothing wrong (yet) and being targeted like this just further emphasizes the idealism that the US will do what they want without fear of repercussion, and cause more damages when the strike backs occur.

Oh but wait, when the strike backs happen it'll be an atrocity and unthinkable then.
 
I'm proud of our guys for pulling this off. I'll take cyber war over a ground war any day.
 
not much of a suprise at all, but its interesting to get (semi)confirmation that the US governement keeps a stockpile of zero day vulnerabilities...
 
It's highly unethical for the US to be involved in something like this. Iran (and previously Iraq) is expected to expose themselves for UN inspectors, and then the US and Israel uses this information for acts of war.

It's also highly unethical of the US government to be trying to scare the American into a panic over Iran's nuclear program. (One redeeming thing about Obama beating McCain is a break in the fear-mongering and WMD lies.)
 
It wasn't speculation. There is no surprise. The U.S. and Israel said they created it shortly after it came out. How is this news?
 
Stone Cold said:
It's highly unethical for the US to be involved in something like this. Iran (and previously Iraq) is expected to expose themselves for UN inspectors, and then the US and Israel uses this information for acts of war.

It's also highly unethical of the US government to be trying to scare the American into a panic over Iran's nuclear program. (One redeeming thing about Obama beating McCain is a break in the fear-mongering and WMD lies.)
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As if the US Gov were ever ethical.

It is nice getting a break from the WMD lies, but obama's lies are no better when you get right down to it.

Sacks of shit, all of them.
 
Az Syndicate said:
So using a non lethal means of ensuring That IRAN does not get the A-Bomb is Sad? Would you rather we use force? Or would you rather IRAN get a bomb and use it? They constantly say their goal is to destroy Isreal.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel

Yes, it's Wikipedia, but feel free to peruse the references below the article. Iran's goal to destroy Israel is a western media fear-mongering rhetoric. Ahmadinejad, as crazy as he is, never said he would wipe Israel off the map. He said he would try and stop Israel's Zionist regime. I think we all agree that Israel's government is every bit as crazy as Ahmadinejad. Probably has something to do with the heat in the desert.

But yes Iran still pose a legitimate danger to the world with nuclear materials in their possession given their history of arming terrorists. But then so is Pakistan and China. Our fears are still quite unfounded so far and I hope it stays that way. Iran's uranium has not been enriched enough to create atomic weapons.

Anyways, I've commented about the subject in Genmay's Soapbox already, so here's a paste of what I already said there:

I was reading a 5 page article about this on NY Times at lunch. Quite a long read. Turns out Bush wanted to attack Iran militarily and wanted to tell the world that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, but his advisers told him to sit down and shut up because he should be the last person in the world to tell everyone who has WMD after his fuck-up in Iraq. His defense ministers were practically begging to attack Iran despite us already being in two wars, but lucky for us, Bush listened to his advisers and asked for other options. Israel, NORAD and Strategic Defense, and NSA got together and came up with "the bug" and after months of coding they tested it on a centrifuge given to us by Libya's Qaddafi (when he surrendered his WMD program in 2003). After a few tests and refining the code and a change of presidency they launched it on Iran. It supposedly set Iran's nuclear efforts back by 6-12 months to give the UN enough time to agree on and impose sanction on them.

It's a very interesting story. It tells about other bugs developed by our intelligence and military research experts as well.
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Master Blaster said:
Cyber War is immanent. So the US and Israel are going for Gold uh? How long will it take for the government to come out and say 'Flame' was also a US creation some 5 years ago?

This type of thing is only going to get deeper and more drawn out as civilizations become more infused with technology.
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Ironic ain't it. The U.S. governments been fear mongering cyber terrorism and cyber warfare and as of this moment the only internationally known such attack has been sponsored by the same government blowing smoke up everyones ass.

Hackers can take down our power grid, can disrupt military communications, and Kevin Mitnick could launch Nuclear ICBM's whistling.
 
IRSmurf said:
I'm proud of our guys for pulling this off. I'll take cyber war over a ground war any day.
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Sure, but why are you even going to war over it? The US basically invaded Iraq and killed thousands for no reason. Now they're caught breaking into secure areas of neighboring countries as well.

This just shows them attacking the middle east in both physical and cyber fronts. Public resentment against the US would just grow when people realize the US can stomp anywhere whenever they like.

We've already got issues about the US arresting people from other countries for breaking US laws, yet when the criminals are in the US, they're protected.

Every psychopathic warlord probably thought he was righteous too.
 
stealthy123 said:
not sure I agree with the assertion the US invaded iraq for no reason.
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It was the false premise that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction that angered people around the world and caused most to rethink our right to invade Iraq.

Also, as it turned out, Al Queda had no affiliation in Iraq during Saddam's reign. Saddam actively repelled them because they were funded by Iran, Iraq's arch enemy. This was Bush's lie #2.

If Bush had came out and said that he wanted to finish his daddy's work and dispose of Saddam because he kept going on television and chanting "neener neener" at the American government, then the world would likely believe his wanting to invade - though not necessarily agree with him.

I'm glad we're out of Iraq. We had no business there.
 
OR !

.. they might be claiming they did it to make themselves look better. (just a thought)
 
Action_Parsnip said:
Oh come on, as if they ACTUALLY would use it. They are perfectly aware their state would be turned into glass in retaliation. If you reply what if they got one and gave it to some terrorist group I would say 1) They'd be found out in the end and be invaded 2) I'd worry *far more* about Pakistan and how safely those nukes are stashed. It's a state within a state and the inner one is not a friend of the West.
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You are pretty naive to think that. It wouldn't come in the form of a rocket, it would be sold, smuggled in and detonatated without knowing who did it. The US has plenty of enemies that would be willing to help out.
 
Cyber or physical, Iran would be justified in considering this a declaration of war, and retaliate in the same way. You are actually just asking for reciprocity when you perform any form of attack.
In this age, it's just impossible to keep anything like that a secret forever. That's how wikileaks works, people ashamed of the unethical actions of their government will share the information if it's the only way to stop these actions.

Not even mentioning that a cyber attack that causes physical destruction is a physical act of war, it's not just in the cyberspace.
 
Right , all you nay sayers , would you rather have a radical dangerous country like Iran which would gladly use Nuclear Warfare if able , to posses HEU or would you rather significantly slow down production of such material and possibly prevent it easily getting into the hands of terrorist groups who would happily pay whatever sum to do so? How many times does Iran need to tell everyone they fucking hate Israel and would gladly blow it into non-existence.

You should be thanking the US and Israel for developing this virus to slow down production even for a limited period of time. It buys us precious time hopefully to find a diplomatic solution and if not at least it buys us a few years more before a Nuclear war could happen between the two.

I love the Obama blame , such ignorance. You think a virus like this was developed in a few months or something like that? It takes years and years to even research how it would be done , who would attempt to create it , where it would be created , how it would be uploaded and finally how it would execute/destroy what equipment we could get our hands on to test it with. This was likely something that was started during the Bush Administration.
 
Not sure where anyone said obama was behind this. pretty sure it was even stated that this was bush.

nevertheless, it does make you wonder if iran is planning some sort of counter-attack. After all, we did dish out the first blow.
 
Godmachine said:
Right , all you nay sayers , would you rather have a radical dangerous country like Iran which would gladly use Nuclear Warfare if able , to posses HEU or would you rather significantly slow down production of such material and possibly prevent it easily getting into the hands of terrorist groups who would happily pay whatever sum to do so? How many times does Iran need to tell everyone they fucking hate Israel and would gladly blow it into non-existence.
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It's sad how many minds are poisoned by main stream media.

Do yourself a favor and read this article and references below it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
 
I don't think anyone was too surprised at who did this, I am a little surprised they finally admitted it. I am also a little surprised the current administration went along with it.

That said, Cyberwar is here to stay, so we need to stay ahead of the curb. Not losing control of a supervirus might be a good start ;). But in all seriousness, score one for the US.
 
Azhar said:
It's sad how many minds are poisoned by main stream media.

Do yourself a favor and read this article and references below it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
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I'm sorry, I just saw this. You quoted Wikipedia as your source and then say the media is no good? Just saying, if you want to convince people you might want to do/show some better research. That's all. Good luck to you on that count.
 
thewooster said:
I'm sorry, I just saw this. You quoted Wikipedia as your source and then say the media is no good? Just saying, if you want to convince people you might want to do/show some better research. That's all. Good luck to you on that count.
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Is wikipedia incorrect that often?
 
And people wonder why the middle-east is wary of the Judeo-Christian alliance.

I always ask though, what does the US get in this exchange? Israel's benefits are always obvious and immediate, but I don't understand how their lobby gets whatever they want in our congress.
 
Ducman69 said:
And people wonder why the middle-east is wary of the Judeo-Christian alliance.

I always ask though, what does the US get in this exchange? Israel's benefits are always obvious and immediate, but I don't understand how their lobby gets whatever they want in our congress.
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And on that note, I also don't understand why Israel, an industrial nation with an economy on par with European countries, is the largest recipient of foreign aid from the United States, accounting for more of the US budget than all other recipients combined.

And here I thought foreign aid was meant to help poorer countries with disaster relief and the like.
 
chockomonkey said:
Is wikipedia incorrect that often?
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Often enough. It's not so much even that it's incorrect. It's compiled by the masses essentially and not truly considered a scholarly source in any academic circle. The information might be good, and it might not. Either way it is not going to be thorough, and no more than a starting point. I'm just saying that if you wanted to change my mind on an important matter, wikipedia would not be the place to send me. Especially on hot topics such as the one mentioned. If you watch some of those pages the definitions change almost every day (try watching the page on 'god' for instance ;). That's all.
 
MRAB54 said:
You are pretty naive to think that. It wouldn't come in the form of a rocket, it would be sold, smuggled in and detonatated without knowing who did it. The US has plenty of enemies that would be willing to help out.
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and our actions make that list grow larger by the day.


when the light becomes darker then the darkest, who then becomes the light.

when the rest of the world views us as the biggest threat, what is next?
 
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