Stuxnet Worm is a "Game Changer" for Global Cybersecurity, Top U.S. Official Tells Senate

For those wondering why the U.S. consistently supports a certain country of the Levant...it doesn't want to be on its bad side.

Read "Cyber War" by Richard A. Clark

It will inform you of just how serious this
situatuation is. Our top cyber security experts
in our country and our allies all know how
vunerable we all are and currently there is
not much we can do about it.

Cyber attacking these days is way ahead of cyber defending

Our top cyber defender officials say there are
hackers in other countries out there that
currently have malicious sleeper code in our
most secure networks that control power grids,
nuclear power plants, wall street and banking
institutions, all branches of military including
satelites that control UAVs.

The only thing stopping hackers from triggering
there attacks right now is nothing.
They only need to be provoked and all we can
do is clean up the mess if possible.

This is scary stuff. That is why I always think it is a good idea to have hard copies of stuff. I wish knew more about computers. If I did I would try help expand cyber security, even for free. To make the world a better and safer place sometimes you have to sacrifice time knowing you will not be payed for your work.

The only way any major systems could be affected is if they're connected to the net. Iran was just stupid enough to keep their important computers connected. All that anyone has told them is that they need to disconnect them from their main network and do what everyone else has been doing since 1990.

The only real important system that needs the net is banking, but it also has more money and desire for security than any other system in the world so it's very doubtful that it could be taken down very easily.

Watch the intelligence squared debate on the subject, it's a few months old but interesting still.

If Iran was targeted then I'm sure Israel was behind it!

@zajhein

Not true, the atack came via an USB-stick.

@zajhein

Also there is a bigger push to create "smart" power grids, etc. With that, you have to be connected to some kind of network. When you do that, you open the door for infection via network since most of the will most likely use the internet for communication to keep costs down.

Alot of industrial IT systems are net connected for maintenance purposes - sometimes the owners don't realise they are net connected because they do not realise that back-doors that allow monitoring and maintenance mean that your system is net connected.

The problem is not the worm. The problem is when the systems continually have millions and billions of dollars worth of updated, but basically the same technology base equipment installed. Non UNIX/POSIX is a start. Trinary and a non-hexadecimal are also options. To all of a sudden say we are going to stop the advancement of hardware while we wait for malware to catch up is typical madness, I suppose. We like UNIX/POSIX because it is simple and fairly efficient, but who cares? Storage is cheaper every day. We keep right on turning down very advanced alternative technologies each year in favor of the same old thing-FOR THE SAME PRICES. Stuxnet my butt. Who needs a tunneling worm when a Pfc can dump ForceNet content at will? Isn't it plugged into everything? We don't apparently employ any real data containment measures; not even in an active war zone where a reasonable person would consider every interface or piece of equipment easily compromised.