Aberrant Code--Stuxnet and the Dawn of Cyberwar

Aberrant Code--Stuxnet and the Dawn of Cyberwar

Stuxnet was a sophisticated computer worm discovered in 2010.
Its target was not just any computer. It was an industrial control system (SCADA) installed at an Iranian nuclear facility - the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

Stuxnet is said to have been jointly developed by the U.S. and Israel (no official authorization has been given, but many reports confirm this).
It has only one purpose: to secretly delay Iran's nuclear weapons development. It was the first ever attempt to neutralize a nation's strategic base using only malware, without the use of guns or bombs.

But there was a problem. The nuclear facility at Natanz was located in an "air-gapped" environment, completely disconnected from the external Internet.
Normal online attacks were impossible.
So Stuxnet opted for a human-mediated intrusion.

It targeted employees and outside contractors entering and leaving the target facility, first infecting the computers they used.
The means of infection was a USB memory stick, which was commonplace at the time.
By connecting a single USB stick to an unprotected terminal, Stuxnet gained a foothold inside the facility.

From there, the worm began to spread surreptitiously, reaching industrial control networks and seeking out systems running Siemens' Step7 control software.
Once it found its target, it subtly disrupted the rotational speed of the centrifuge, leading to its destruction - although the anomaly went undetected because it continued to send only normal data to the on-site monitoring equipment.

In the process, Stuxnet simultaneously exploited four zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows and disguised itself as legitimate software with stolen digital signatures.
Even after infection, Stuxnet precisely selected the target environment and attacked only those systems that met the requirements, avoiding unnecessary destruction as much as possible.

The size of the program was approximately 500 kilobytes (KB). This was a huge code group that was several hundred times larger than that of ordinary malware.
It even had self-cloaking and self-deleting functions inside. It was as if a professional agent had completely erased all traces of itself.

After the discovery of the worm, the world finally came to realize that cyberspace was no longer a mere communication channel.
Cyberspace is no longer just a place for the transmission of information, but a new battlefield for nations to engage in conflict.

A silent invasion, a war without gunfire.
Stuxnet was the signal for the beginning.