In 2010, the internet was beside itself upon the discovery of the Stuxnet worm, a piece of malware that was designed by the both the U.S. and Israeli governments to sabotage Iran’s uranium enrichment plans. Though the worm was designed for cyber-warfare, due to an error, it had inadvertently leaked onto the internet where it was discovered and feared it would spread indiscriminately.
Following a New York Times report, Wired breaks down the story behind the error code that allowed the Stuxnet worm to “escape” onto the Net. Most telling in the reports however, is that President Obama had knowledge of the worm’s error code and the real possibly that it would “escape” onto the Internet – yeah, it did just that. Also of note, when Stuxnet was in use by the government, the U.S. was in a pissing contest with China over using cyberattacks to sabotage industry. Go figure.
The world of international espionage, cyber security and cyber warfare is clearly not for the feint of heart. To be honest it would read like a great spy novel if it weren’t all very real and very scary. Hit the source link for the full story.
Source: Wired – Threat Level
You must be logged in to post a comment.