[Pak Daily Times] The malicious Stuxnet computer worm has hit 30,000 industrial computers in Iran, officials said on Sunday, but denied the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among those infected.| It wasn't 'Made with a Mac', so ... |
The worm is able to recognise a specific facility's control network and then destroy it, according to German computer security researcher Ralph Langner, who has been analysing the malicious software.
| Shoulda used Ubuntu, guys ... |
| This is what happens when you ignore that little balloon at the bottom-right that tells you that you don't have any anti-virus software installed ... |
| I thought you said there wasn't one ... |
| As I understand it (which of course is not very well) nobody knows exactly what Stuxnet is supposed to do. I keep reading that all the hacker experts have figured out is that it establishes itself in the computers of factory-type systems and, perhaps, sends information out to somewhere, and, perhaps at some point will take over the computer and have it make its machine go damagingly faster or slower... perhaps. So not crashing isn't anything to crow about in this context. |
| Oh, really? Fascinating. Do tell us more. |
Telecommunications minister Reza Taqipour said "the worm has not been able to penetrate or cause serious damage to government systems."
"No serious damage to industrial systems (by Stuxnet) have been reported in the country," he said. According to Iran Daily, telecommunications official Saeed Mahdiyoun said "teams of experts had begun to systematically eliminate the virus."
Meanwhile Liayi said without giving details that Stuxnet was "likely a (foreign) government project," given its complexity. The newspaper cited various experts who suggested the United States and Israel were behind the malware, evoking the "West's electronic warfare against Iran."
Liayi said industries were currently receiving systems to combat Stuxnet, while stressing Iran had decided not to use anti-virus software developed by Siemens because "they could be carrying a new version of the malware."
"When Stuxnet is activated, the industrial automation systems start transmitting data about production lines to a main designated destination by the virus," Liayi said.
"There, the data is processed by the worm's architects and then engineer plots to attack the country." Iran's nuclear ambitions are at the heart of a conflict between Tehran and the West, which suspects the Islamic republic is seeking to develop atomic weapons under the cover of a civilian drive.