Stuxnet Hitting China Now

A most unwelcome visitor...

Breitbart:

A computer virus dubbed the world's "first cyber superweapon" by experts and which may have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities has found a new target -- China. 

The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc in China, infecting millions of computers around the country, state media reported this week. Stuxnet is feared by experts around the globe as it can break into computers that control machinery at the heart of industry, allowing an attacker to assume control of critical systems like pumps, motors, alarms and valves. It could, technically, make factory boilers explode, destroy gas pipelines or even cause a nuclear plant to malfunction. 

The virus targets control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities. "This malware is specially designed to sabotage plants and damage industrial systems, instead of stealing personal data," an engineer surnamed Wang at antivirus service provider Rising International Software told the Global Times. "Once Stuxnet successfully penetrates factory computers in China, those industries may collapse, which would damage China's national security," he added. 

Another unnamed expert at Rising International said the attacks had so far infected more than six million individual accounts and nearly 1,000 corporate accounts around the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported. 

The Stuxnet computer worm -- a piece of malicious software (malware) which copies itself and sends itself on to other computers in a network -- was first publicly identified in June. It was found lurking on Siemens systems in India, Indonesia, Pakistan and elsewhere, but the heaviest infiltration appears to be in Iran, according to software security researchers.

Rumored origin of course is an Israeli-CIA collaboration of some sort. DebkaFile reported that Israel has had special elite units carrying out such assignments for some time. Three years ago, for instance, cyber raiders played a role in the destruction of the plutonium reactor North Korea was building at A-Zur in northern Syria. Now reportedly 3000 centrifuges are down at Nanantz... and these 7th-century savages had no idea what hit them... but they've started to figure it out

Israel is probably more than 10 years ahead of the Iranians in this field, and I doubt this is the last of it- not by a long shot. Cyberwarfare presents a battlefield of Israel's choosing: it's fairly deniable, and far preferable for a country smaller than Lake Michigan taking on Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas all at once... and with tepid US support.

Brietbart via Weasel Zippers

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