Last week, a worm called Stuxnet had infected the personal computers of staff at Iran's first nuclear power station.
There had been rumors that this worm was state-sponsored because of its complexity and hypersophistication. The worm was first encountered this June and has since shown up in a number of attacks — primarily in Iran, Indonesia, India and the U.S. This 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. So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 computers worldwide, Microsoft reported last month. Only a few are industrial control systems. 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.
The situation just got scarier because this time, a nuclear power plant was hit. Can it launch nuclear missiles? According to experts who have started reverse engineering the malware, it has the potential to do so. It has the ability to autonomously and without human assistance discriminate among industrial computer systems. If utilized for terrorism purposes, it would definitely have a highly destructive potential.
The world had witnessed several wars. The earliest ones were fought with fists. After which came spears, arrows, swords then guns and cannons. And then came atomic bombs, biological weapons and nuclear missiles. What’s next? A cyber missile which could eradicate half of the world with just pressing the “Enter” key? Why can’t people who want war just engage themselves in a good fistfight? It is far more dignified than fighting from a distance – the assailant unharmed while watching the target and the world burn.
--- Gen S. (9)
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