A newly surfaced version of the Duqu trojan indicates that the authors of one of the most sophisticated computer worms in recent memory are aggressively trying to figure out how to attack their next target.
The Conficker worm was one of the more intriguing and potentially destructive pieces of malware in the past decade. Earlier reports have suggested that Stuxnet was created by the US and Israeli governments, and now Reuters has a source telling them Conficker was also used to negate Iran’s nuclear program.
Despite no official confirmation by the Pentagon, it’s a very safe assumption that the US created the Stuxnet worm (with Israel’s help) to take Iran’s nuclear reactors offline. But when it was first discovered, it seemed too sophisticated for Earthlings.
Ready to shake in your shoes? This video breaking down how Stuxnet works and where it could go next is flat out frightening. (And if this wasn’t a government program, I’ll eat a centrifuge.)
To many in the intelligence community (especially those who purportedly created it), the Stuxnet worm was a wildly successful cyberattack. But it was also a major failure on at least two fronts—fronts that could come back to haunt us.
Stuxnet, the complex computer worm that nearly crippled Iran’s still-functioning nuclear program, didn’t just sprout from the ether. It was created, by Man, and was probably tested in Israel at the massive (and oft-unacknowledged) Dimona nuclear facility.
