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Stuxnet Missing Link Found, Resolves Some Mysteries Around the Cyberweapon
- j_s 14y agoMentions use of an obscure(?) Windows IPC mechanism: Windows mailslots (circa Windows 2000). http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365130%28v=vs.85%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa36... * a pseudofile that resides in memory * use standard file functions * cannot be larger than 424 bytes when sent between computers * can broadcast messages within a domain
- drivingmenuts 14y agoI don't know the ins and outs of Windows to a great degree, but that reads like an exploit waiting to happen. Is this sort of functionality still present in Windows? If so, are they idiots or what?
- jbigelow76 14y agoI'm wondering if government agencies like the CIA, NSA and their counterparts in other countries look for vulnerabilities in programs but never report them to the vendors for fixing but instead catalog them for possible use in future exploits. (actually, I'm not really wondering, it's probably naive to assume they wouldn't)
- Spooky23 14y agoIt's beyond that -- they actually have created a market for the trading of 0-days, and bid against each other using various proxies.
- contingencies 14y agoMy own experience, meeting some of these people, suggests this is certainly correct.
- EvanAnderson 14y agoThere have been vulnerabilities found in the code handling mailslots, but the protocol itself is just a mechanism to do broadcast-based communication. It's old and crufty, dating back to the DOS LanManager days, but I'm sure there are applications out there that still rely on the functionality and, as is typical for Microsoft, the API still exists in modern Windows versions. (The NetBIOS "Browse List" functionality that powered "Network Neighborhood" uses this protocol, for example.)
- EvanAnderson 14y agoMailslots are an SMB-based IPC mechanism that dates back to Microsoft LanManager (LANMAN). I could see using mailslots as a mechanism to disguise traffic and potentially thwart NIDS. SMB broadcast traffic is considered "noise" by a lot of admins and might well be excluded from traffic monitoring to prevent "chatty" traffic from filling the logs. Using mailslots, as opposed to rolling a custom broadcast-based protocol, makes the traffic sink into the normal SMB noise floor.
- WestCoastJustin 14y agoReverse engineer how something like this was created and it is mind boggling. The initial intelligence gathering of the target systems, developing the plan of attack, recruit experts on the siemens hardware and physicists to explain the things that could go wrong, development and QA must have been grueling, since the expense of failure is so great! Never mind the deployment and monitoring to see if it was effective! They probably recreated the entire environment to test different ways to cause havoc. Stuxnet recorded various data points while the cascades and centrifuges operated normally, in order to replay this data to operators once the sabotage began. They must have had a working system to test this on?! The budget for something like this is probably in the tens of millions if not more. The HR requirement must have been pretty large too. Analysts to gather information, managers, programmers, qa, siemens hardware experts, physicists, deployment, monitoring, etc, etc.
- JakeSc 14y ago> The budget for something like this is probably in the tens of millions if not more. Absolutely. This was a massive defense spending project by any measure. How many people do you think worked on it? Assuming the project was highly compartmentalized, I would estimate that there are at least SIX subteams currently working on the next Stuxnet. - 0-Day exploitation of PCs. How big is the team responsible for discovering / purchasing 0-day exploits? - Hardware/firmware-level infection. This would require expert knowledge of the specific control systems. - Networking / infrastructure. This requires an intimate knowledge of target network topology. - Boots-on-the-ground payload delivery (nontechnical). - Spear-phishing payload delivery. Perhaps the points of entry were several levels removed from the actual target facility (e.g., security guards' wives' laptops). - Testing / QA. All of this of course has to be backed up by world-class intelligence support, which I shan't address further. The technical feats of developing this alone are astounding and intriguing. Holy shit.
- Mandatum 14y agoHere I am thinking it'd be cheaper to give a 5-million dollar duffel bag to some freelance Russians..
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- islon 14y agoThe most amazing thing about stuxnet is that if hollywood were to make a movie about it we would find it too unrealistic, even if it was less fantastic than the real facts.
- nitrogen 14y agoWe would find it unrealistic because Hollywood would get the details wrong. Encryption would be portrayed as wiggly squares on a screen. "Port scanning" would be confused with "hacking." The example I gave to a politically minded friend: Imagine a political drama with dialog like this: "We've found a bug in the parliamentary procedure! Call the senator!" "Oh no! Quick, we've got to omnibus the filibuster before the cloture overflows and the whole bill crashes!"
- JakeSc 14y agoWe cannot begin to imagine the extent to which world military powers are currently developing and deploying cyberweapons. Given the success of Stuxnet, it's nearly certain that such offensive cyberwarfare programs have gotten increased funding and support from the highest levels of command. From the article, Stuxnet 0.5 C&C servers first went online in 2005. 2005! George W. Bush ordered the deployment of Stuxnet! I personally cannot wait to hear about what the cyberweapons fo 2013 look like.
- cpeterso 14y agoAlso consider the cyberweapons that haven't been discovered yet. "Only stupid criminals get caught" and Stuxnet got caught. :)
- OGinparadise 14y agoMaybe it was a Mission Impossible /suicide mission for an older but reliable operative. It did the job but... :)
- mercuryrising 14y agoAn ex-CIA director did a feature on 60 minutes talking about Stuxnet- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCQqmV1LWDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCQqmV1LWDo
- ninetax 14y agoI imagine that some of the people working on those cyberweapons also read HN. I wish they could talk more about it (wink wink).
- jlgaddis 14y agoMost of those involved in working on Stuxnet likely did not (and, in many cases, probably still do not) know what they were actually working on.
- throwaway29912 14y agoOn the third page of the article, there's a screenshot of the fake company website where the command and control servers resided, set up by the CIA/whoever back in 2006. Today, if you search for the specific phrases used in the navigation bar, Google returns only 3 websites: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22media+planning%22+philosophy+%22creative+services%22+%22search+solutions%22+ecrm+%22ad+serving%22&gbv=1&sei=PxUtUbzfBsWa2AXYkoCQAw https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&output=search&... The terms are: "media planning" philosophy "creative services" "search solutions" ecrm "ad serving" Sadly, these sites just look spammy rather than fake sites set up by the CIA (and Alexa shows some SEO work has been done.... but that could be part of the facade). Still, fishing for CIA CNC servers sounds like a fun game, they must be out there today. Anyone have any ideas how to find them?
- ChuckMcM 14y ago"Anyone have any ideas how to find them?" Follow the malware. Dan Danchev [1] used to be quite forthcoming with his analysis until he wasn't anymore. If you set up a malware aquarium [2] you can see the C&C servers these things use. Although not all malware reproduces in captivity. [1] http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/2013/02/dissecting-nbcs-exploits-and-malware.html http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/2013/02/dissecting-nbcs-exploit... [2] https://www.xkcd.com/350/ https://www.xkcd.com/350/
- ianhawes 14y agoMoreover, you could simply 301 redirect the index of one of your 'shell' companies to a legitimate company. No one would be the wiser.
- squozzer 14y agoHuh. And I thought for sure the missing link was classes12.zip or maybe vbrun300.dll.
- Scramblejams 14y agoSingle page version here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/new-stuxnet-variant-found/all/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/new-stuxnet-variant...
- mirkules 14y ago"The 2007 variant resolves that mystery by making it clear that the 417 attack code had at one time been fully complete and enabled before the attackers disabled it in later versions of the weapon." The thing that struck me most was the use of the word "weapon"[1]. Jeff Moss warned in his 2011 BlackHat opening speech that blurring the line between cyberwarfare and actual warfare is inevitable. Wired's use of "weapon" here signifies that shift, and really reinforces the fact that each one of us who is writing software may play a part in cyber wars, even if inadvertently. [1]It may have been an unintentional use of "weapon," as Stuxnet is referred to as a "cyberweapon" throughout the article, but the point that we are moving towards describing cyber warfare as actual warfare still stands.
- stcredzero 14y agoI wonder if such weapons have already been directed against our advanced fighters, ships, and submarines. I remember reading about the COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) program in the late 90's and the use of Windows NT 4 on AEGIS vessels. Supposedly, there was a protocol for rebooting everything, every two weeks. Hopefully, nothing critical would be down the moment there was an attack. (To be fair, the NT4 kernel is rock solid, so long as you leave it unmolested, which Microsoft didn't.)
- mpyne 14y agoWell nothing works forever on a warship anyways, and the Navy is already very big on Preventative Maintenance (i.e. "fix it until it's broke"). So any plan assuming that a system will stay up for an entire deployment is negligent from the start; you might as well practice having to reboot the system from that perspective.
- stcredzero 14y agoMy understanding, and my experience from working with NT4 machines back then, is that you had to reboot them every so often. It wasn't just a matter of practicing rebooting.
- mpyne 14y agoSure, I'm just saying that was (and is) par for the course already for the Navy. It would be like complaining that the software comes in a ugly box... even if it came in a nice box, the Navy would just throw the box away and stuff it in an ugly box anyways.
- stcredzero 14y agoAnd I'm saying that the boxes wouldn't insist on getting ugly or most of the equipment wouldn't insist on preventive maintenance in the middle of an attack. The NT4 boxes might well have insisted on being rebooted at an in-opportune moment.
- martinced 14y agoI remember when the "NSA" variable name was found in Windows source code that accidentally leaked out. Some people claimed that the NSA had backdoors into Windows and nearly everybody singed happily: "Conspiracy theorists". I'm not so sure that nowadays with all this Stuxnet insight people would be so hard-pressed to label these people conspiracy theorists. Also, no more Windows source code did leak out with all the comments and variable names in the clear etc. One has to wonder how "open" Windows actually is to the NSA and if all these 0-days so commonly found are really honest mistakes or not...
- jmcqk6 14y agoAm I missing something or had stuxnet started development before any of the centrifuges were installed? Was there perhaps an even larger game afoot which led Iran to choose certain hardware in the first place? I suppose development of the software could have started without knowing which PLC's it would target eventually, but that seems doubtful to me. Of course, the easiest explanation is that I'm missing something in the timeline.