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2010-09-23 09:17:37
By Mark Clayton Mark Clayton Tue Sep 21, 3:08 pm ET
Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber
super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target a factory,
a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.
The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its
detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its
capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say
Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to
cross from the digital realm to the physical world to destroy something.
At least one expert who has extensively studied the malicious software, or
malware, suggests Stuxnet may have already attacked its target and that it
may have been Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, which much of the world
condemns as a nuclear weapons threat.
The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer security
experts. Too large, too encrypted, too complex to be immediately understood, it
employed amazing new tricks, like taking control of a computer system without
the user taking any action or clicking any button other than inserting an
infected memory stick. Experts say it took a massive expenditure of time,
money, and software engineering talent to identify and exploit such
vulnerabilities in industrial control software systems.
Unlike most malware, Stuxnet is not intended to help someone make money or
steal proprietary data. Industrial control systems experts now have concluded,
after nearly four months spent reverse engineering Stuxnet, that the world
faces a new breed of malware that could become a template for attackers wishing
to launch digital strikes at physical targets worldwide. Internet link not
required.
"Until a few days ago, people did not believe a directed attack like this was
possible," Ralph Langner, a German cyber-security researcher, told the Monitor
in an interview. He was slated to present his findings at a conference of
industrial control system security experts Tuesday in Rockville, Md. "What
Stuxnet represents is a future in which people with the funds will be able to
buy an attack like this on the black market. This is now a valid concern."
A gradual dawning of Stuxnet's purpose
It is a realization that has emerged only gradually.
Stuxnet surfaced in June and, by July, was identified as a hypersophisticated
piece of malware probably created by a team working for a nation state, say
cyber security experts. Its name is derived from some of the filenames in the
malware. It is the first malware known to target and infiltrate industrial
supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software used to run chemical
plants and factories as well as electric power plants and transmission systems
worldwide. That much the experts discovered right away.
But what was the motive of the people who created it? Was Stuxnet intended to
steal industrial secrets pressure, temperature, valve, or other settings and
communicate that proprietary data over the Internet to cyber thieves?
By August, researchers had found something more disturbing: Stuxnet appeared to
be able to take control of the automated factory control systems it had
infected and do whatever it was programmed to do with them. That was
mischievous and dangerous.
But it gets worse. Since reverse engineering chunks of Stuxnet's massive code,
senior US cyber security experts confirm what Mr. Langner, the German
researcher, told the Monitor: Stuxnet is essentially a precision,
military-grade cyber missile deployed early last year to seek out and destroy
one real-world target of high importance a target still unknown.
"Stuxnet is a 100-percent-directed cyber attack aimed at destroying an
industrial process in the physical world," says Langner, who last week became
the first to publicly detail Stuxnet's destructive purpose and its authors'
malicious intent. "This is not about espionage, as some have said. This is a
100 percent sabotage attack."
A guided cyber missile
On his website, Langner lays out the Stuxnet code he has dissected. He shows
step by step how Stuxnet operates as a guided cyber missile. Three top US
industrial control system security experts, each of whom has also independently
reverse-engineered portions of Stuxnet, confirmed his findings to the Monitor.
"His technical analysis is good," says a senior US researcher who has analyzed
Stuxnet, who asked for anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the
press. "We're also tearing [Stuxnet] apart and are seeing some of the same
things."
Other experts who have not themselves reverse-engineered Stuxnet but are
familiar with the findings of those who have concur with Langner's analysis.
"What we're seeing with Stuxnet is the first view of something new that doesn't
need outside guidance by a human but can still take control of your
infrastructure," says Michael Assante, former chief of industrial control
systems cyber security research at the US Department of Energy's Idaho National
Laboratory. "This is the first direct example of weaponized software, highly
customized and designed to find a particular target."
"I'd agree with the classification of this as a weapon," Jonathan Pollet, CEO
of Red Tiger Security and an industrial control system security expert, says in
an e-mail.
One researcher's findingsLangner's research, outlined on his website Monday,
reveals a key step in the Stuxnet attack that other researchers agree
illustrates its destructive purpose. That step, which Langner calls
"fingerprinting," qualifies Stuxnet as a targeted weapon, he says.
Langner zeroes in on Stuxnet's ability to "fingerprint" the computer system it
infiltrates to determine whether it is the precise machine the attack-ware is
looking to destroy. If not, it leaves the industrial computer alone. It is this
digital fingerprinting of the control systems that shows Stuxnet to be not
spyware, but rather attackware meant to destroy, Langner says.
Stuxnet's ability to autonomously and without human assistance discriminate
among industrial computer systems is telling. It means, says Langner, that it
is looking for one specific place and time to attack one specific factory or
power plant in the entire world.
"Stuxnet is the key for a very specific lock in fact, there is only one lock
in the world that it will open," Langner says in an interview. "The whole
attack is not at all about stealing data but about manipulation of a specific
industrial process at a specific moment in time. This is not generic. It is
about destroying that process."
So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 industrial control systems around
the world, without blowing them up although some victims in North America
have experienced some serious computer problems, Eric Byres, a Canadian expert,
told the Monitor. Most of the victim computers, however, are in Iran, Pakistan,
India, and Indonesia. Some systems have been hit in Germany, Canada, and the
US, too. Once a system is infected, Stuxnet simply sits and waits checking
every five seconds to see if its exact parameters are met on the system. When
they are, Stuxnet is programmed to activate a sequence that will cause the
industrial process to self-destruct, Langner says.
Langner's analysis also shows, step by step, what happens after Stuxnet finds
its target. Once Stuxnet identifies the critical function running on a
programmable logic controller, or PLC, made by Siemens, the giant industrial
controls company, the malware takes control. One of the last codes Stuxnet
sends is an enigmatic DEADF007. Then the fireworks begin, although the
precise function being overridden is not known, Langner says. It may be that
the maximum safety setting for RPMs on a turbine is overridden, or that
lubrication is shut off, or some other vital function shut down. Whatever it
is, Stuxnet overrides it, Langner s analysis shows.
"After the original code [on the PLC] is no longer executed, we can expect that
something will blow up soon," Langner writes in his analysis. "Something big."
For those worried about a future cyber attack that takes control of critical
computerized infrastructure in a nuclear power plant, for instance Stuxnet
is a big, loud warning shot across the bow, especially for the utility industry
and government overseers of the US power grid.
"The implications of Stuxnet are very large, a lot larger than some thought at
first," says Mr. Assante, who until recently was security chief for the North
American Electric Reliability Corp. "Stuxnet is a directed attack. It's the
type of threat we've been worried about for a long time. It means we have to
move more quickly with our defenses much more quickly."
Has Stuxnet already hit its target?It might be too late for Stuxnet's target,
Langner says. He suggests it has already been hit and destroyed or heavily
damaged. But Stuxnet reveals no overt clues within its code to what it is
after.
A geographical distribution of computers hit by Stuxnet, which Microsoft
produced in July, found Iran to be the apparent epicenter of the Stuxnet
infections. That suggests that any enemy of Iran with advanced cyber war
capability might be involved, Langner says. The US is acknowledged to have that
ability, and Israel is also reported to have a formidable offensive
cyber-war-fighting capability.
Could Stuxnet's target be Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, a facility much
of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat?
Langner is quick to note that his views on Stuxnet's target is speculation
based on suggestive threads he has seen in the media. Still, he suspects that
the Bushehr plant may already have been wrecked by Stuxnet. Bushehr's expected
startup in late August has been delayed, he notes, for unknown reasons. (One
Iranian official blamed the delay on hot weather.)
But if Stuxnet is so targeted, why did it spread to all those countries?
Stuxnet might have been spread by the USB memory sticks used by a Russian
contractor while building the Bushehr nuclear plant, Langner offers. The same
contractor has jobs in several countries where the attackware has been
uncovered.
"This will all eventually come out and Stuxnet's target will be known," Langner
says. "If Bushehr wasn't the target and it starts up in a few months, well, I
was wrong. But somewhere out there, Stuxnet has found its target. We can be
fairly certain of that."