Stuxnet malware is 'weapon' out to destroy ... Iran's Bushehr nuclear
plant?
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Fwww.csmonitor.com%2F>
By Mark Clayton Mark Clayton - Tue Sep 21, 3:08 pm ET
Cyber security experts <http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/327178##> say they
have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed
specifically to destroy a real-world target - a factory, a refinery, or
just maybe a nuclear power plant.
The cyber worm, called Stuxnet <http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/327178##> ,
has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As
more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose
have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival
heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from
the digital realm to the physical world - to destroy something.
At least one expert who has extensively studied the malicious software,
or malware, suggests Stuxnet may have already attacked its target - and
that it may have been Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, which much of
the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat.
The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer
security experts <http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/327178##> . Too large, too
encrypted, too complex to be immediately understood, it employed amazing
new tricks, like taking control of a computer system without the user
taking any action or clicking any button other than inserting an
infected memory stick. Experts say it took a massive expenditure of
time, money, and software engineering talent to identify and exploit
such vulnerabilities in industrial control software systems.
Unlike most malware, Stuxnet is not intended to help someone make money
or steal proprietary data. Industrial control systems
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/327178##> experts now have concluded,
after nearly four months spent reverse engineering Stuxnet, that the
world faces a new breed of malware that could become a template for
attackers wishing to launch digital strikes at physical targets
worldwide. Internet link not required.
"Until a few days ago, people did not believe a directed attack like
this was possible," Ralph Langner, a German cyber-security researcher,
told the Monitor in an interview. He was slated to present his findings
at a conference of industrial control system security experts Tuesday in
Rockville, Md. "What Stuxnet represents is a future in which people with
the funds will be able to buy an attack like this on the black market.
This is now a valid concern."
A gradual dawning of Stuxnet's purpose
It is a realization that has emerged only gradually.
Stuxnet surfaced in June and, by July, was identified as a
hypersophisticated piece of malware probably created by a team working
for a nation state, say cyber security experts. Its name is derived from
some of the filenames in the malware. It is the first malware known to
target and infiltrate industrial supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) software used to run chemical plants and factories
as well as electric power plants and transmission systems worldwide.
That much the experts discovered right away.
But what was the motive of the people who created it? Was Stuxnet
intended to steal industrial secrets - pressure, temperature, valve, or
other settings -and communicate that proprietary data over the Internet
to cyber thieves?
By August, researchers had found something more disturbing: Stuxnet
appeared to be able to take control of the automated factory control
systems it had infected - and do whatever it was programmed to do with
them. That was mischievous and dangerous.
But it gets worse. Since reverse engineering chunks of Stuxnet's massive
code, senior US cyber security experts confirm what Mr. Langner, the
German researcher, told the Monitor: Stuxnet is essentially a precision,
military-grade cyber missile deployed early last year to seek out and
destroy one real-world target of high importance - a target still
unknown.
"Stuxnet is a 100-percent-directed cyber attack aimed at destroying an
industrial process in the physical world," says Langner, who last week
became the first to publicly detail Stuxnet's destructive purpose and
its authors' malicious intent. "This is not about espionage, as some
have said. This is a 100 percent sabotage attack."
A guided cyber missile
On his website, Langner lays out the Stuxnet code he has dissected. He
shows step by step how Stuxnet operates as a guided cyber missile. Three
top US industrial control system security experts, each of whom has also
independently reverse-engineered portions of Stuxnet, confirmed his
findings to the Monitor.
"His technical analysis is good," says a senior US researcher who has
analyzed Stuxnet, who asked for anonymity because he is not allowed to
speak to the press. "We're also tearing [Stuxnet] apart and are seeing
some of the same things."
Other experts who have not themselves reverse-engineered Stuxnet but are
familiar with the findings of those who have concur with Langner's
analysis.
"What we're seeing with Stuxnet is the first view of something new that
doesn't need outside guidance by a human - but can still take control of
your infrastructure," says Michael Assante, former chief of industrial
control systems cyber security research
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/327178##> at the US Department of Energy's
Idaho National Laboratory. "This is the first direct example of
weaponized software, highly customized and designed to find a particular
target."
"I'd agree with the classification of this as a weapon," Jonathan
Pollet, CEO of Red Tiger Security and an industrial control system
security expert, says in an e-mail.
One researcher's findingsLangner's research, outlined on his website
Monday, reveals a key step in the Stuxnet attack that other researchers
agree illustrates its destructive purpose. That step, which Langner
calls "fingerprinting," qualifies Stuxnet as a targeted weapon, he says.
Langner zeroes in on Stuxnet's ability to "fingerprint" the computer
system <http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/327178##> it infiltrates to
determine whether it is the precise machine the attack-ware is looking
to destroy. If not, it leaves the industrial computer alone. It is this
digital fingerprinting of the control systems that shows Stuxnet to be
not spyware, but rather attackware meant to destroy, Langner says.
Stuxnet's ability to autonomously and without human assistance
discriminate among industrial computer systems is telling. It means,
says Langner, that it is looking for one specific place and time to
attack one specific factory or power plant in the entire world.
"Stuxnet is the key for a very specific lock - in fact, there is only
one lock in the world that it will open," Langner says in an interview.
"The whole attack is not at all about stealing data but about
manipulation of a specific industrial process at a specific moment in
time. This is not generic. It is about destroying that process."
So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 industrial control systems
around the world, without blowing them up - although some victims in
North America have experienced some serious computer problems, Eric
Byres, a Canadian expert, told the Monitor. Most of the victim
computers, however, are in Iran, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. Some
systems have been hit in Germany, Canada, and the US, too. Once a system
is infected, Stuxnet simply sits and waits - checking every five seconds
to see if its exact parameters are met on the system. When they are,
Stuxnet is programmed to activate a sequence that will cause the
industrial process to self-destruct, Langner says.
Langner's analysis also shows, step by step, what happens after Stuxnet
finds its target. Once Stuxnet identifies the critical function running
on a programmable logic controller, or PLC, made by Siemens, the giant
industrial controls company, the malware takes control. One of the last
codes Stuxnet sends is an enigmatic "DEADF007." Then the fireworks
begin, although the precise function being overridden is not known,
Langner says. It may be that the maximum safety setting for RPMs on a
turbine is overridden, or that lubrication is shut off, or some other
vital function shut down. Whatever it is, Stuxnet overrides it,
Langner's analysis shows.
"After the original code [on the PLC] is no longer executed, we can
expect that something will blow up soon," Langner writes in his
analysis. "Something big."
For those worried about a future cyber attack that takes control of
critical computerized infrastructure - in a nuclear power plant, for
instance - Stuxnet is a big, loud warning shot across the bow,
especially for the utility industry and government overseers of the US
power grid.
"The implications of Stuxnet are very large, a lot larger than some
thought at first," says Mr. Assante, who until recently was security
chief for the North American Electric Reliability Corp. "Stuxnet is a
directed attack. It's the type of threat we've been worried about for a
long time. It means we have to move more quickly with our defenses -
much more quickly."
Has Stuxnet already hit its target?It might be too late for Stuxnet's
target, Langner says. He suggests it has already been hit - and
destroyed or heavily damaged. But Stuxnet reveals no overt clues within
its code to what it is after.
A geographical distribution of computers hit by Stuxnet, which Microsoft
produced in July, found Iran to be the apparent epicenter of the Stuxnet
infections. That suggests that any enemy of Iran with advanced cyber war
capability might be involved, Langner says. The US is acknowledged to
have that ability, and Israel is also reported to have a formidable
offensive cyber-war-fighting capability.
Could Stuxnet's target be Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, a facility
much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat?
Langner is quick to note that his views on Stuxnet's target is
speculation based on suggestive threads he has seen in the media. Still,
he suspects that the Bushehr plant may already have been wrecked by
Stuxnet. Bushehr's expected startup in late August has been delayed, he
notes, for unknown reasons. (One Iranian official blamed the delay on
hot weather.)
But if Stuxnet is so targeted, why did it spread to all those countries?
Stuxnet might have been spread by the USB memory sticks used by a
Russian contractor while building the Bushehr nuclear plant, Langner
offers. The same contractor has jobs in several countries where the
attackware has been uncovered.
"This will all eventually come out and Stuxnet's target will be known,"
Langner says. "If Bushehr wasn't the target and it starts up in a few
months, well, I was wrong. But somewhere out there, Stuxnet has found
its target. We can be fairly certain of that."
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