September 22, 2010
Stuxnet
Stuxnet is a computer virus that requires no action from the user other than the insertion of a memory stick. It is encrypted and complex, able to exploit security vulnerabilities across multiple levels, and may be the first virus intended to transition from the digital to the physical world.
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.”
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