Stuxnet Political impact

[nobody456]

washingtonpost.com


I know it's long but bear with me if you're interested.

It appears (after reading more articles) that the threat of a "serious" disaster is lower than it was last fall/winter when the worm was first released with 4 zero-day vulnerabilities. Since this finding has been made public, I believe it could have really good or really bad repercussions.

I'm very curious about the source of the worm, but I don't think it should be made public.

Source:
non-state actor
Good: If it is found that a non-state entity was the source with very private funding, it could lead to some thawing in an already existing gov't cyber warfare environment. I think Gov'ts don't realize the value of worms like Stuxnet being available in their arsenal (mutual-destruction from the cold war isn't really a relative term in cyberspace yet..it's more like containment/trial-and-error probing) and are vulnerable to the risk of contracting high-risk programs like this. Tearing down specific honey-pots (forum sites frequented by known terrorists and drop intel) and unintentionally destroying other servers in the attack is a very stark contrast to this worm that was developed around the same time.
could be good/could be bad: Someone could've leaked a tip to the group who "discovered" the worm so that a gov't could buy the worm. Free advertising through legitimate channels of news of powerful malware. Maybe an African country decides that it wants vengeance on the "white man's burden?"
Bad: An attack could happen. Hackers may or may not develop variants of the code or techniques used in this worm to develop their own attacks. Starting to wonder how energy markets/companies would be affected by certain types of energy being destroyed in an attack. Who gains/loses?

state actor:
Good: kinda hard at the moment to see this being a good thing for any gov't in terms of maintaining peace. Unless of course the intention is to grab more power from this. Smart for themselves, but seriously dangerous.
Bad: very bad if it's Israel. Many people see Israel as a sort of irresponsible kid brother of the US. Any western gov't would be just as bad because it sends a message to other non-western gov'ts of existing ideological difference that those misgivings are even truer (propaganda for terrorists, etc.) Wouldn't be surprised if Russia or satellite USSR country had a hand in it. Neither would Germany surprise me either. Siemens equipment is targeted and could buffer future assets by having a upper-hand in this experience vs. their competitors. Not much for them to lose.

 

[nobody456]

A basic summary. Sometimes codes mututate or other entities or will use it or the design to carry out counterattacks or another variant will exist later.

Here's to hoping that nobody is stupid enough to fool around with switches that they don't really know how to control.

 

[deafskeptic]

I've been hearing about cyberwars that we'll wage in the future. I wonder if this is a forerunner of things to come if we ever were to embroil ourselves in WWWIII or a long drawn out war between nations, groups and extremist groups. Knocking out electrical plants and nuclear plants would be devasting.

Now that I think about it, it is likely we could be facing future cyberwars between nations, companies, or extremist groups across the political spectrum or even a lone man. Or maybe all of them at once.

 

[nobody456]

...yeah...this event is very significant because it represents an ability to actually control electrical systems.

It used to be that cyber-warfare was "limited" to just "probing" or rather, just building walls and battle back intruders. At least, that's what the public knows.

This worm was designed with principles of traditional physical warfare in mind. No doubt that it was malicious and classifiable as an "act" of war.

I think the way the worm has been exposed has been "responsible". Save for the supposed Israeli reference. Like I said, I hope this brings major governments to come out and condemn these sort of actions, but don't be all that surprised for any result that's possible. No fear, just live life.