Stuxnet And The Age Of Digital Warfare

Kim Zetter, WIRED

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

In June 2010, a small security firm in Belarus discovered a computer worm that had infected computers in Iran and was causing them to crash. The worm used an ingenious zero-day exploit to spread, but other than this it appeared to be generic malware designed for corporate espionage. But as digital detectives dug through the code and began to reverse-engineer its commands, they discovered it was much more sophisticated than previously believed and had a much more insidious goal— to physically sabotage equipment used in Iran's nuclear program. Stuxnet, as the malicious program was dubbed, was a landmark attack since it was the first cyberweapon ever discovered in the wild and was the first digital code to jump the gap from the digital world to the real world to cause physical destruction. This presentation focuses on how the brilliant attack was designed and unleashed on computers in Iran -- being targeted against five companies in Iran who could help the attackers reach their target -- how researchers discovered and deciphered it and how it's discovery led them to uncover an arsenal of espionage tools that were also created and unleashed by the same attackers. It will also examine how Stuxnet launched a new era of warfare and how critical infrastructure systems in the U.S. and elsewhere are now at risk of ‘blowback’ and copycat attacks thanks to the authors of Stuxnet.