Computer warfare has been a constant theme in science-fiction stories for decades. Now it appears that reality has once again caught up with fiction.
You probably remember reading about the Stuxnet worm when it was uncovered in June 2010. This extremely sophisticated package of malware was hosted on Windows PCs, but remained inactive unless the PCs were used for controlling industrial processes via connection to a device using a distinct Siemens programmable logic controller. Experts say the software then tested the PLC environment, seeking a particular site. Once the site was found, Stuxnet would replace certain command codes on the PLC, presumably sabotaging the process the PLC controlled. This process might be a city's electrical grid, an industrial manufacturing process or, more ominously, a nuclear facility.
It was discovered that Stuxnet infections clustered in Iran. This led pundits to speculate that the malware was intended to subvert Iran's nuclear-weapons research and production efforts, and that the worm was created by another country, perhaps the United States or Israel. The New York Times has concluded that the U.S. and Israel collaborated on Stuxnet after reporters learned that Israel tested the software on its own nuclear centrifuge-control systems.
Stuxnet was apparently at least partially successful. Hundreds of Iran's nuclear centrifuges were taken offline after the malware hit.
This month, a successor to Stuxnet has been identified. Duqu was written by someone with access to Stuxnet source code, analysts say, probably the original authors of Stuxnet. Unlike Stuxnet, which was deployed in attack mode, Duqu is apparently intended to collect information on potential targets. This information could help cyber-warriors craft a new version of Stuxnet to target individual industrial, information processing, or government targets.
PC security is a multibillion-dollar business, with many tools available and evolving standards for maintaining protection levels. Industrial-control computers, on the other hand, enjoy limited protection at best. Because embedded computer systems have not been targeted, and because they are not widely covered in the media, they have not benefited from the attention of software-security experts. Yet it is these systems that would most likely serve as targets in a cyberwar.
The computers that run our transportation systems, our utilities, our factories, our hospitals, and our hazardous-materials processing sites are virtually unprotected.
Sleep well, my friends.
Web recommendation: I don't think most Web comics are funny, but this one actually made me laugh out loud: xkcd: The Important Field. J.D. say check it out.
J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He passed away several years ago; subsequent articles have been composed by a random text generator running on an ancient Commodore-64.