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Israel silent as Iran hit by computer virus more violent than Stuxnet – report
- tyingq 8y agoAssuming these were already airgapped. I wonder if this could have been prevented with a 10 cent glue stick for USB ports.
- thrwia22 8y agobut whats the story? some guy again picked an unknown usb stick en route to his job at super secret nuclear facility and just plugged it into a nuclear supervising computer again to see the contents?
- draz 8y ago“Some guy” is probably an employee of the facility who knew perfectly well the USB key that he was probably given, not at random, is not innocuous.
- Ajedi32 8y ago> Details about the supposed new attack are superficial at the moment, as there are no details about the supposed attack, the damage it caused or its targets. So... not much of a story at the moment. Iran claimed its under attack by a "Stuxnet-like" virus. Doesn't seem like there are any other significant details beyond that. It's not even clear that the target was nuclear centrifuges this time.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoFU money and exfiltration to USA. Kids go to US colleges and live happily, ever after. Just so he doesn't insulted :) mention that Iran could be better without the mullahs. No doubt, USA already has the list of employees and knows their weak points.
- losteric 8y agoOr maybe a supply chain man-in-the-middle attack.
- paulcole 8y agoBe careful or you’ll end up as Bloomberg’s next source!
- shard972 8y agoTo say stuxnet was akin to someone plugging a USB drive in really downplays how serious the operation surrounding stuxnet was. Iran was having their nuclear scientists assassinated in the streets at the time stuxnet was being infiltrated into the nuclear facilities. I have a feeling that when you have that level of resources being dedicated to a mission, your not hinging your whole plan on someone picking up a random usb and plugging it in.
- thx4allthestuff 8y agoFor those who haven't watch 'Star Trek Into Darkness' in awhile, go watch it again and note how the guy walks into the ultra secure facility and plugs in Khan's thumb-drive. That's how it goes down when shit gets real.
- thx4allthestuff 8y agoThank you. Down voters just did me a huge favor. I'm done contributing here.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 2RTZZSro 8y agoIsrael Mossad used remotely detonated magnetically attached bombs attached to the victim's car door while they were stuck in traffic using a motorcycle drive-by attack. That's unusual outside of the Middle East. In most other countries they trigger remote exploits (electronic and physical) in target vehicles which lead to terrible crashes.
- jameskilton 8y agoI highly recommend reading the book "Countdown to Zero Day". Stuxnet was incredibly sophisticated and explicitly targeted at Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. https://www.amazon.com/Countdown-Zero-Day-Stuxnet-Digital/dp/0770436196 https://www.amazon.com/Countdown-Zero-Day-Stuxnet-Digital/dp...
- paulie_a 8y agoThe documentary on it is also excellent.
- salimmadjd 8y agoOT this content was posted by a user who registered just 3 days ago. user: chablent created: 3 days ago karma: 524
- quickthrower2 8y agoHe has what looks like a bot running posting articles from major new sources about 1 per hour. A couple of those articles did well on HN and those got him the Karma. Nice Karma gaming.
- onetimemanytime 8y agohow is it possible to submit so many news stories, like 10 a day. The "posting too fast" didn't kick in?
- quickthrower2 8y agomaybe dang would know?
- shawn 8y agoNo need to guess. The code is public, and (judging by firsthand experience) they seem to be using a similar if not identical version: https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/f01d3f9c661eed05511711a0f3388ca2a1d34fa2/news.arc#L1524-L1538 https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/f01d3f9c661eed055... New users can submit up to 2 stories every 3 hours. Bad users can submit up to 1 story every 3 hours. Looks like the bot is submitting at precisely that limit, but the timestamps aren't quite accurate enough. Some interested user could check the API to get the full times. I wish there were some way to contact the bot author. I want to see the code. It's no small feat to write an effective bot.
- bscphil 8y agoThat's quite a lot. For a site with a single feed that <50 articles surface on every day, one would think one story a day would be more than sufficient for new users.
- picsao 8y agoThe murder is always the janitor
- bhouston 8y agoToo bad the us didn't stay in the Obama negotiated P5+1 nuclear agreement.
- Freestyler_3 8y agoMore violent but also more out in the open, where stuxnet was a silent killer. (meaning it was deliberately less violent)
- systematical 8y agoIt was pretty violent if you were a centrifuge. More targeted was stuxnet.
- jonshariat 8y agoI thought it would only slightly tweak the speeds so it would ruin the result. It didn't destroy them.
- vezycash 8y agoIt did both. Randomly breaking tubes was sure to make people jumpy, and the machines seem haunted.
- sneak 8y agoHow can software be “more violent”? How can software that isn’t running directly on a weapons platform be “violent” at all?
- cavanasm 8y agoIf the software physically destroys the hardware that is running it, I'd say that's fairly violent. Stuxnet, the virus it's being compared to, destroyed the centrifuges it infected. Sort of the issue with the "more violent" explanation so far is that Iran isn't saying how bad the damage is, and it sounds like this new virus might be hitting critical infrastructure like power systems, but no one will say anything beyond "systems are being attacked".
- bitdeveloper 8y agoTurning off or modifying automated systems in any large device - buses, cars, airplanes, centrifuges, stadium roofs - would have potential for massive violence/destruction.
- qubax 8y agoEspionage is one thing. But isn't targeted cyberattacks on another nation's facilities and infrastructure an act of war? Anyone know if there are any international law covering cyberattacks?
- protomyth 8y agoIf cyberattacks counted, the US would be at war with China and Russia. I bet there will be a treaty eventually, and I have some fears on what secondary restriction it will place on the internet.
- cm2187 8y agoA treaty that is unenforceable (ie no one can observe the outcome) is as good as no treaty. You can't really attribute most cyberattacks and if you automatically assume it is country x, then country y in conflict with country x will rush into attacking you.
- protomyth 8y agoOh, they could make it enforceable, but I don't think anyone would really like the resulting version of the internet except bureaucrats who crave power over all things. You see some politicians mention that all software developers should be licensed, and we see companies requiring signed code to allow it to run on platforms. Licenses for servers happen in some places. Its all little step, but a few more gets you a locked and licensed computing network.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoAnd the Five Eyes would be at war with their own citizens? I'll bet there are a few companies running private wars too.
- protomyth 8y agoOn that track, if my server logs are an indication there are quite a few folks running private wars.
- NotANaN 8y agoGuessing that Israel feels (or was explicitly told to be) unleashed to act against Iran by the Trump administration after Bolton entered.
- pc86 8y agoBased on?
- SiempreViernes 8y agoOfficial US policy against Iran is that they should suffer sanctions despite adhering to the treaty that got them lifted. Trump alsomoved the embassy, discarding all the policy against itfor no good reason. That Trump would tell bibi to go town if he wants to is extremely plausible, it’s pretty weird to question that.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoHow do you explain Stuxnet?
- yasp 8y agoSo is there any indication yet what the virus did / is doing?
- ectospheno 8y agoThe title is just a variant on the argumentum ex silentio logical fallacy.