Stuxnet Virus Detected in Russian Nuclear Facility

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Eugene Kaspersky of Kaspersky Antivirus has revealed that a staffer at a Russian nuclear plant informed him that the infection that was introduced to the internal network there was the Stuxnet virus. Stuxnet is well known – a powerful malware that for the first time demonstrated to governments the capabilities and efficiency of a true cyber weapon.

That disclosure has fanned the flames of debate on the importance of the use of software and malicious applications in information warfare. Since then every government has begun improving their cyber capabilities for both defense and offense, not least the U.S. government.

According to Security Affairs, the malware Stuxnet is widely considered to have been developed by the U.S. Government in coordination with Israeli cyber units, as a means to disrupt Iran’s nuclear enrichment plans.

The risks related to the dispersal of uncontrolled malicious agents in cyberspace, are that a hostile entity, such as a foreign government or a cyber criminal gang, could reverse engineer their source code to create even more dangerous malware.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

It may well be that the cause of the infection in the Russian nuclear plant could have been the same virus that was unleashed in the control system in the Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz. Stuxnet infected the nuclear plant networks despite them being isolated from the internet, similar to the Iranian case. It was most probably done using a USB device.

Russian Intelligence agencies have come across this type of infection in the past, as other isolated networks have been infiltrated. Russian astronauts, for example, had carried a virus on a removable media source to the International Space Station, according to Kaspersky infecting machines there.

Kaspersky, during a presentation given at the Canberra Press Club, focused the on the effort necessary to develop a state-sponsored malware such as Gauss, Flame and Red October. The cyber security expert revealed that in order to design such a malicious code requires a budget of at least $10 million.

Kaspersky stated that more than 50% of malware were written in Chinese, nearly 33% were written in Spanish or Portuguese, followed by Russian-coded malware. This last group is considerably very dangerous because the malicious code it produces is the most sophisticated in the world.

Kaspersky also added that Chinese malware appeared to ‘not care’ about operational security because security experts during the investigation have regularly found personal documents, photos and social networking accounts on servers used in attack campaigns.