Right about now, Iranian IT dudes are pacing in panic because the US and Israel have unleashed the most obscenely devious piece of cyberwar kickass ever seen. It's called the Stuxnet Worm and it targets Iranian SCADA networks exploiting four, count'em four zero-day holes in the Windows systems that run their Siemens plant control software. Word is that over 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges have been taken offline.
So here is the part where I two a couple ounces of speculation. US cyberwar specialists put together a heavy duty worm and Israeli special forces delivered it. Delivered it? I read that the initial delivery mechanism is a thumb drive because it's too big to simply email - not that factory control systems would be generally running email. But in order to target the right systems, it is best hand delivered to close proximity.
High five to the authors of this weapons grade cyber attack. The Obama Administration gets props for something they must have had something to do with, but can say nothing about. Clearly, the disadvantages of having the existence of this kind of cyberweapon out there in the virus defense world outweigh Iran having nukes. But now that this kind of scary smart bug exists, well, it's a whole new virus ballgame.
I have been listening to my network tell me how little time Israel had to make a move before the Russkies started fueling the Iranian nuclear plant suspected to be the heart of their program. It turns out that Stuxnet has been wild for a couple months.
How much it has bollocksed up the works for Iran is anybody's guess, but it's clearly going to cost them. Nice going our side.
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