[ExI] stuxnet hits commie nuke plant, space station

Tue Nov 12 21:01:02 UTC 2013

Local internet security hipsters, does this sound believable to you?  That
nuke plant strains my imagination, but the Space Station?  Every line of
code to any spacecraft is reviewed and tested.  Kaspersky is supposed to be
credible, but I have a hard time believing this story:

Subject: [tt] (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant,
space station

http://www.timesofisrael.com/stuxnet-gone-rogue-hit-russian-nuke-plant-space
-station/

(... links deleted all the way down ...)

     * Tuesday, November 12, 2013
     * Kislev 9, 5774
     * 12:43 am IST
     * Site updated 2 minutes ago

Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant, space station

A cyber-security expert says several ostensibly secure facilities became
victims of the virus that struck Iran's nuclear program

   By [30]David Shamah November 11, 2013, 4:21 pm 

   [36]Eugene Kaspersky (Photo credit: Courtesy Tel Aviv University) 
   Eugene Kaspersky (Photo credit: Courtesy Tel Aviv University)

   A  Russian  nuclear power plant was reportedly "badly infected" by the
   rogue Stuxnet virus, the same malware that reportedly disrupted Iran's
   nuclear  program  several  years  ago.  The  virus  then spread to the
   International   Space   Station   via  a  Stuxnet-infected  USB  stick
   transported by Russian cosmonauts.

   Speaking  to  journalists  in  Canberra,  Australia, last week, Eugene
   Kaspersky, head of the anti-virus and cyber protection firm that bears
   his name, said he had been tipped off about the damage by a friend who
   works at the Russian plant.

   Kaspersky  did  not  say when the attacks took place, but implied that
   they occurred around the same time the Iranian infection was reported.
   He  also did not comment on the impact of the infections on either the
   nuclear  plant  or  the  space  station,  but  did say that the latter
   facility had been attacked several times.

   The  revelation  came  during  a  question-and-answer  period  after a
   presentation on cyber-security. The point, Kaspersky told reporters at
   Australia's  National  Press  Club  last  week,  was  that  not  being
   connected  to  the  Internet  --  the public web cannot be accessed at
   either  the nuclear plant or on the ISS -- is a guarantee that systems
   will  remain  safe.  The  identity of the entity that released Stuxnet
   into  the  "wild" is still unknown (although media speculation insists
   it was developed by Israel and the United States), but those who think
   they  can  control  a  released  virus are mistaken, Kaspersky warned.
   "What  goes  around  comes around," Kaspersky said. "Everything you do
   will boomerang."

   The  Stuxnet  virus  came  to  light  in 2010, having attacked Iranian
   nuclear   facilities   by   hitting  the  programmable  logic  control
   automation  systems that control them. The PLC system, manufactured by
   German  conglomerate  Siemens,  runs  the  centrifuges  used to enrich
   uranium  at  Iran's Natanz facility. Variants of Stuxnet have affected
   the  facility's  centrifuges  in  various ways, mostly by changing the
   activity  of  valves  controlled  by  the  PLC  software that feed the
   uranium  to  centrifuges  at  a specific rate required for enrichment,
   Kaspersky said in several presentations last year.

   It's  not  known when Stuxnet began its activities, but researchers at
   anti-virus  company Symantec said that they had gathered evidence that
   earlier  versions of the code were already seen "in the wild" in 2005,
   although it wasn't yet operational as a virus. Stuxnet, said Symantec,
   was  the first virus known to attack national infrastructure projects,
   and  according  to the company, the groups behind Stuxnet were already
   seeking  to  compromise  Iran's  nuclear  program  in 2007 -- the year
   Iran's  Natanz  nuclear  facility, where much of the country's uranium
   enrichment is taking place, went online.

   Now  that  the  plague  has  been unleashed, said Kaspersky, no one is
   immune  --  and  that  includes  its originators, who are no longer in
   control of it. "There are no borders" in cyberspace, and no one should
   be  surprised  at  any  reports  of  a  virus  attack,  no  matter how
   ostensibly secure the facility, he said.

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References

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