Deciphering Stuxnet

Most viruses try to do stuff like steal passwords, credit card numbers, or secret information. Very few try to actually affect our physical world. The Stuxnet virus, on the other hand, was developed for one purpose: to surreptitiously and gradually destroy centrifuges at a specific nuclear facility in Iran. It was deployed via usb sticks, expoited four zero-day weaknesses in Windows, and executed subtle but damaging changes in centrifuge speeds in very specific machines. There’s a great article over at Wired about how computer security analysts (in particular Liam O Murchu at Symantec) analyzed & eventually determined the purpose of this unique malware.

via slashdot