> In attacking the plant, the hackers crossed a terrifying Rubicon. This was the first time the cybersecurity world had seen code deliberately designed to put lives at risk.
This is no regular malware. This is war.
This is no regular malware. This is war.
Mike Hayden, 2012 [2]:
> We have entered into a new phase of conflict in which we use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction, and in this case, physical destruction in someone else's critical infrastructure.
Still, an alarming development.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stuxnet-computer-worm-opens-new...
About a year ago there was a major transformer that blew in downtown SF, knocking most of the fidi offline. I didn't think much of it -- stuff breaks, and this was pre-PG&E fiasco -- but then I heard the same thing happened in NYC and another major city (maybe Seattle?) that same morning. Things break regularly, and there's always some 3-city combined probability function, but it still made me glance over my metaphorical shoulder.
Ideally we'll still be too scared to use nukes in the next hot war. Everything else that makes modern life bearable is fair game, though.
[edit]: LA was the third city, and all failures were traced to physical faults/aging infrastructure: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/power-outages-la-sf-nyc Like I said, there always is a combined probability function, but point is we're gonna be doing a lot more glancing over our metaphorical shoulders the more we see stories like this.
Targeting civilian infrastructure? With potential mass civilian casualties? That's not in the same league.
If it's from a state it's probably intended to shut down industrial processing. That might require doing something that causes harm, but that's not certain and it's probably not the goal.
Other malware like Stux', and all the various intrusions into power infrastructure etc. that are always being talked about in the media, all share that same purpose - shutting down the logistical or productive capacity of a country, either in a very specific area like Israel v Iran re Nuclear or in a wider sense, like turning off the electricity.