I met Silver Bullet #59 victim Ralph Langner at Joe Weiss’s Applied Control Solutions Conference in Rockville last Fall. That was when (much to the surprise of the Siemens guys there) Ralph first revealed that the Stuxnet payload was aimed directly at physical control systems. In some sense, Stuxnet has changed the world by showing in no uncertain terms just how vulnerable control systems are.
I wrote about Stuxnet at the time and since then much analysis has been published. But most of the coverage continues to be weak on the payload part of Stuxnet (in my view spending too much effort fretting about the more mundane delivery mechanism).
Ralph has spent more time and effort than anyone analyzing the Stuxnet payload and we get into some detail regarding its technical workings during the podcast. Have a listen: [www.cigital.com]
If you ever wondered what a cyber war weapon might look like, Stuxnet is it. It is obvious that Stuxnet was specifically constructed as a targeted attack against the Natanz nuclear centrifuges in Iran.
Sadly, Cyber War is here to stay.