Who can forgot the Stuxnet. This is the cyberattack which actually got the inspiration for new generation of cybercriminals. This cyberattack was first discovered in 2010 by Sergey Ulasen. This virus was one of the targeted virus which takes almost 5 years to get developed.
The Stuxnet is a virus whose history has been associated with one of the known cyberattack in Iranian in the nuclear program of Iran which is an another theory to be said that it is developed jointly by United States and Israel.
It is a virus that directly targets programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which allow the automation of electromechanical processes such as those used to control machinery and industrial processes including gas centrifuges for separating nuclear material. This spread of this virus is started via Microsoft Windows and even now for security researchers, it is a nightmare when they thought about this incident.
So without wasting anytime let’s move on to Staxnet- ironically the son of Stuxnet. If you are ware of the recent news that is getting viral into the media about the attacks of Uranium Enrichment and Missile Procduction on Iranian facilites(Nantaz) claims to be a cyber attack. But what kind of cyber attack and what happened?Let’s dive into this
THE STAXNET
Recently this attack was reported by Iranian media about 2 days ago which claims that this attack is under investigation and they will inform the all the information related to this cyberattack and explosion. Yesterday, Iranian media revealed the details about this attack revealing it was an attack with a Stuxnet virus.
The media claimed that main uranium was penetrated by hacking the PLC which was done through a virus by planting them into the PLC through a “back gate” of a special operating system for computer networks, allowing hackers to take control of the system and change all the configuration and setting that are operated electronically.
As we know the capabilities of Stuxnet which this virus showed in its incident of 2010, it can give full control of device to the hackers and through which bad actors can do whatever they want: change the statistics shown by the device, changing configuration or limits of that device like previously if a device can tolerate maximum of 100 degrees, hackers can change them to 200 degrees. They can change the frequency or can even make display of a device.
This new version of virus operates a little bit different from its ancestors. Instead of spreading through windows, this virus spread through satellites which means that it just need to your location and operator information to target the virus to your device. In this case, it has spread virus to cruise misillies and change their point of target that leads to explosion. This all has lead to death of 19 people and senior military specialist in electronic affairs of Sina Center, in the northern Tehran region of Tarshish.
The security professionals who investigated the case stated that the only reason behind the success for the attackers is the widespread of virus installed into a large number of military and nuclear system and their devices, thus leaving them exposed for a similar event that can take place in the near future, if the virus left installed.
CONCLUSION
In the final conclusion made by the security professional, it has been ordered that all military and nuclear installations has to separate their devices from the Internet and with a emergence, the experts had begun their work to scan the virus from networks and device. They also added that they have started sending threatening letters to Israel and United States who were actually behind the development of this cyberattack and now they will take the revenge.
