DoomsdaysCWAn Unprecedented Look at #Stuxnet, the World's First #DigitalWeapon
In an excerpt from her new book, "Countdown to Zero Day," WIRED's Kim Zetter describes the dark path the world's first digital weapon took to reach its target in #Iran.
Kim Zetter
Nov 3, 2014 6:30 AM
"In January 2010, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency [#IAEA] visiting the #Natanz #uranium enrichment plant in Iran noticed that centrifuges used to enrich uranium gas were failing at an unprecedented rate. The cause was a complete mystery—apparently as much to the Iranian technicians replacing the centrifuges as to the inspectors observing them.
"Five months later a seemingly unrelated event occurred. A computer security firm in Belarus was called in to troubleshoot a series of computers in Iran that were crashing and rebooting repeatedly. Again, the cause of the problem was a mystery. That is, until the researchers found a handful of malicious files on one of the systems and discovered the world's first digital weapon.
"Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm that came before. Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it escaped the digital realm to wreak physical destruction on equipment the computers controlled."
https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/
