Posted on 12/24/2010 9:11:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Real simple, Israel does not lay out its tactics in the Jerusalem Post. All of this Stuxnet discussion from Israel is bogus and that's proven because its in the paper. Their real moves don't get to the front page.
The actual virus infected Windows systems used to program the industrial controllers. The virus then used those systems to put a rootkit into the actual industrial control systems, and reprogramed those systems with instructions that couldn’t be seen by the operators.
So, Stuxnet implanted programming into the actual systems that controlled the centrifuges. Apparently, the instructions caused the motors to run erratically, running over speed and slowing suddenly to cause physical damage.
Some of the equipment could very well have suffered permanent physical damage.
If you goof up fluid flow, whether liquid or gaseous, things can get hot and be damaged. Things like the coolant systems of computers and motors and generators that could provide power and control signals to the centrifuges.
The centrifuges themselves just shutoff and slow down if there's trouble. However all of the highly specialized, ain't gonna be on Ebay, support machinery can get damaged and be very hard to replace or repair. Especially in Iran where all nuke-related machinery is embargoed from the only known suppliers.
The reason so many P-1's are off line is that Iran cannot get spare parts for the crude inverters they are using and that are getting hot and acting erratically independent of any program bug.
It ultimately matters little in the big scheme whether the centrifuges themselves were damaged, or damage occurred to supporting electronic controllers and/or HVAC equipment, if enrichment was interrupted. It is like asking whether the Abrams Tank broke down because of a gas turbine problem or a broken track cog. Useful to the M1A1 engineers post-mortem, but either way, it missed the battle.
You are so aggressively pushing the “centrifuges are immortal” line I am wondering about your motivation. Is it just technical one-upsmanship or something else? For the typical readers, your presentation is going to cow them into believing Stuxnet had no effectiveness at all. Even Ahmadinejad has admitted that it did. His motivations tend to be different from those of “Israeli PR”.
This article is the best I've read on Stuxnet. It gives Kaspersky's analysis of the worm and why it has been so effective...
Article title: Stuxnet: Prepare for worse in 2011
Kaspersky Lab's analysis of the most serious virus threats of 201 [sic] has put Stuxnet as the most dangerous. According to Kaspersky, Stuxnet was the most complex piece of malware in cybercriminals' arsenal to date. Kaspersky said that an analysis of the worm found that it was designed to change the logic within programmable logic controllers (PLCs) embedded into inverters which are used to control the rotation speed of electric motors. These PLCs operate with very high speed motors that have limited applications, such as those in centrifuges.
"The epidemic also marked the beginning of the era of attacks on industrial targets. The worm is unique in that it uses as many as four zero-day Windows vulnerabilities at the same time in order to infiltrate victim computers, and has a rootkit component signed with certificates stolen from integrated circuit manufacturers, Realtek Semiconductors and JMicron."
The Kaspersky report noted that cybercriminals may have bought these files from insiders or stolen them using a backdoor or some other similar piece of malware. Legitimate signatures are one of the reasons that Stuxnet successfully escaped detection by antivirus programs for quite a long time. Malware signed by valid certificates can easily circumvent even the modern protection mechanisms built into Windows 7, the report warned. Thus, when a signed malicious driver or an ActiveX component is installed on a system, no warning window appears.
"Judging by what we are seeing today, the problem of stolen certificates may become even more significant in 2011," according to Kaspersky Lab's Yury Namestnikov, author of the report 'IT Threat Evolution for Q3-2010'.
Thank you for your replies,
You cleared up a lot of questions for me.
Merry Chrismas to you and your families.
You sound very knowledgeable.
Why would the Israelis try to create the impression that Iran’s nuke program suffered a serious setback? Do you think the Israelis want the world to think Iran is less of a threat?
I don’t think it is a matter of what Israeli’s wanting the world to think of Iran. Assuming Israel designed Stuxnet, the main motive is NATIONAL SURVIVAL.
Un-workable centrifuges cannot be kept a secret for too long.
Firstly, the systems controlling Iran’s centrifuges are based on WINDOWS, the world’s most used and most popular (even though many hate it ) operating system.
A virus like this cannot be kept secret for too long from Hackers the world over ( thousands of them, Windows being the most hacked OS on the planet ). The grapevine will ensure that the news start spreading.
Secondly, Iran does not have enough experts to deal with a sophisticated virus like Stuxnet. They do have a few experts but we recently learned that one was assassinated and the other one badly wounded in a blast.
Which brings us to -— request for help from foreign experts. If they do this, the problem cannot be kept hidden either.
The primary motive of Israel ( assuming they did it ), is to DISABLE Iran’s capability for making nuclear weapons. That should be plain to everyone. Whether the world knows about it or not is not going to be their main motive.
SURVIVIAL, that’s the motive.
"Killing and scaring off Iran's engineers and scientists is a laudable and worthy effort."
Is there anything pacifist, non-specific, or anti-Israel about that?
Clearly I am not an Iranian supporter. Clearly I am an Israeli supporter.
But most of all I am an American patriot that won't tolerate being led by the nose by any outside group. That is what the Israeli PR machine does to American media constantly.
Secondly, I am opposed to ignorance. Here is a technical area that I am professionally trained by Siemens, inverters and frequency drives are a part of my professional engineering life.
I also have studied Radiological Safety and have a working knowledge of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.
When I see a nexus of technical mis-statements by Israeli PR and a lack of understanding by FR readers, OK gee, I'm gonna lay out the facts that I know. Accept them or deny them, but most of all, if you disagree, offer your own theories and technical understanding.
Don't box my statements into bland dismissals like "centrifuges are immortal". Clearly, my prior post described their fragile nature of being destroyed by a small spot of skin oil.
I also described Stuxnet's destructive effectiveness.
If you know better, please, in your words, one-up me.
I have posted many times over the last few years corrections to the Israeli PR machine's gloating over Iranian failures, claiming them as their own, but most of all pushing stories of Iran's supposed nuclear weapons prowess.
It is a concerted effort on the part of Israel to scare America into eventually attacking Iran, that is Israel's goal.
I give credit where credit is due, Israel was clearly behind the assassination of Iranian nuke engineers, a first-rate effort.
Over-blowing Iran's importance is dangerous also, America has to make decisions based on logic and a clear understanding and not on a mind-set concocted in the editorial room of the Jerusalem Post.
The problem is the Israel tries to hard to defend itself at America's expense. Creating a hysteria over Iran is their tactic.
Iran is going to have nukes. Period. Neither Israel or America can stop that.
What is needed is regional stability and Iranian containment. Israel is not doing its part to improve regional stability but wants us to do all the heavy lifting of containing Iran.
Settle the Palestinian problem Israel. If we want to contain Iran, we have to extend the embargo to what Iran sells, not just what it buys.
It is outrageously stupid that the very week the Obama's vacationed in Spain, Spain signed a deal with Iran to buy most of its oil and natural gas from Iran.
It is outrageously stupid for Iran to be allowed to build a pipeline across Iraq to sell its natural gas to Europe. Why doesn't Israel threaten to bomb that pipeline? For all the blood we shed in Iraq, most of it due to the direct effort of Iran, it is a disgrace that we don't stop Iranian marketing.
By allowing Iran to enrich itself, there will always be sellers of nuke technology available to them somehow. That will be the greatest accelerator to Iranian nukes.
It is no different in Israel. The media there has become very progressive and liberal.
Forces inside Israel would like to give away the farm very much like our leaders here in America.
The Mossad and other intelligence agencies have used the media to spread misinformation.
Don't believe everything you read, in fact, discard all but 30% and take your thoughts out of the box...you'll be wiser for it.
Think outta the box.
J-Post = left of liberal
J Post is NOT liberal. Ha’aretz, Maariv, and Yediot ARE liberal.
J Post used to be more conservative than they now are under EIC Horovitz, but they are far from left.
Caroline Glick writes and is on the editorial staff.
Gandalftb wants to trash Israel coming and going. Look at his/her post to me #51 -
“Israeli PR machine’s gloating over Iranian failures, claiming them as their own, but most of all pushing stories of Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons prowess.”
So which is it? Israel wants Iran to appear uber competent or incompetent? Make up your mind.
Also look at post #52 — “Settle the Palestinian problem Israel. “ and “The problem is the Israel tries to hard to defend itself at America’s expense”
Anti-Israel bias right there. Sounds like Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan.
My point is that attributing stories like this to “Israeli PR” makes no sense.
Israel’s PR goal vis a vis Iran is to make sure the civilized world understands Iran is an imminent and virulent threat to them.
Israel’s goal in creating Stuxnet (if they did, and I believe they did), is as you say — National Survival. That same motive is behind any PR machinations as well.
clearly you are NOT an Israel supporter as demonstrated by your posts#51 and #52 and this one.
So have the guts to admit the obvious.
That’s fine fella. Just pay attention to the Middle East.
Won’t be long before the media whores will change their reporting.
Bright flashes of light now being reported in and around Iran’s nuke and military installations....back to you in the studio Biff.
The hilarious part of this all is that multi-million dollar systems responsible for the production of strategic material not only have a default system password set, but administrators are told not to change it.
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