The Stuxnet Virus Essay

Ralph Langner’s article on the Stuxnet worm discusses the hardware, distribution and targets of the attack. He also goes into detail regarding the outlook of future attacks and what we can do to prevent them.

The most recents detections of how cyber warfare is inevitably coming was the accusations of Russia hacking the the Democratic National Committee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email’s releasing damaging evidence against them which ultimately lead to Donald Trump being named the President of The United States (Diamond, 2016). The effects of cyber warfare have leaked over in to televise series, forming shows such as CSI cyber, and the gaming world, Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare. Neglect regarding cyber security can: undermine the reputation of both the government and elected officials; force unacceptable expenditures associated with the cost of cleaning up after security breaches; cripple governments' abilities to respond to a wide variety of homeland security emergency situations or recover from natural or man-made threats; and disable elected officials' ability to govern (Lohrmann, 2010). Classified information such as overseas operators and attacks, missile locations, response plans and weaknesses, and much more cripples America’s ability to defend itself from enemies both foreign and domestic. To combat cyber terrorism is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA. In an article titled “Why Cybersecurity Information Sharing Is A Positive Step for Online Security” it is discussed that under CISA, the Department of Homeland security will have more responsibility for domestic cybersecurity. CISA’s fundamental purpose is to better enable cybersecurity information to be shared between the private and public sectors (2016). The sharing of threat information between public and private sectors can give the the United States a head start by allowing them to share information rapidly and more often to combat enemy threats while still providing safety for privacy and civil

In a documentary by Admiral Vern (2002), “the events of September 11, 2001 tragically illustrated that the promise of peace and security in the 21st Century is fraught with profound dangers”. The US foreign policies and interest in key geographic regions of the world sparks controversies resulting in state funded cyber attacks, cyber espionage and terrorism against the United States and its allied nations. When several attempts to cripple the United States and its allied nations through negotiations failed, enemy states and nefarious groups have shifted their focus to cyber attacks and cyber espionage. According to Gady (2016), “China continues cyber espionage against the United States”. Drezner (2014), “Washington and Beijing hardly agree on everything, but they agree on the big things, like maintaining an open global economy, reducing the likelihood of a military confrontation, and tackling climate change”.

The plan to launch cyber warfare on the Iranians began after a negotiation took place between the Europeans and The United States. This was due to Iran’s plan to continue their production of uranium. “Iran resumes uranium enrichment at Natanz after negotiations with European and American officials flounder.” (Gates, 2012). Our nations armed forces, CIA, and NSA worked together to create a classified cyber-attack to be launched on “Iran’s nuclear enrichment program” (Gates, 2012). The United States fear of nuclear weapons from Iran was the only motive for the cyber-attack, and was continued once President Obama came into office.

In order to properly answer the question posed we must first define what cyber-war and cyber-terrorism are. The Oxford Dictionaries defines cyber-war as “The use of computer technology to disrupt the activities of a state or organization, especially the deliberate attacking of communication systems by another state or organization:” Although there is no dictionary definition of cyber-terrorism, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has defined it as “the use of computer network tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (e.g., energy, transportation, government operations) or to coerce or intimidate a government or civilian population.” The author defines cyber terror as “the intimidation of civilian enterprise through the use of high technology to bring about political, religious, or ideological aims, actions that result in disabling or deleting critical infrastructure data or information.”

The United States government needs to focus less on physical warfare and more on cyber warfare.

Year Zero began with the detection of the Stuxnet malware, allegedly developed by the United States, who partnered with Israel. This malware was released in order to damage Iranian machines and “mess with Iran’s best scientific minds.” Stuxnet proved that the United States was willing to do whatever it took to develop these forms of offensive capabilities which are needed to “dominate the cyber battlespace.” This attack was used to send Iran’s nuclear program back almost two years. I think that what made Stuxnet dangerous was that it was nearly impossible to detect, developers had “zero days” to fix or patch damage that had already been done. The computers used to transfer the malware were not connected to the Internet, they jumped the “air gap” by allowing the malware to be transferred through portable devices, leading to an even more traumatic cyberattack.

Imagine if you were an employee of a large credit card corporation such as Visa or MasterCard. You can make up to $90,000 a year but all of a sudden your bank account was $0.00 along with all your coworkers, bosses and the company stock dropped to zero. There would be panic, chaos and disorder due to everyone losing their money. The culprit of such a chaotic situation was a result of a cyber-attack by a hacker. The cyber attacker hacked into the system and caused the databases to transfer all of the money into some bank accounts elsewhere. This is just one example of cyber terrorism and all the damage it is can do to people lives. Businesses corporations are usually not targets of terrorism, but government databases usually are targeted. Cyber terrorist often try to hack into government databases and steal information that would be valuable to America but dangerous in the hands of terrorist. Through cyber-attacks information for nuclear weapons, shut down codes or other government secrets can be gained by a number of terrorist organizations. “ cyber-attacks on our nation private sector and government networks have increased dramatically in the past decade” ( www.fbi.gov) This increase in attacks means that there is a higher chance that terrorist can shut major power grids and leave millions without power or disrupt the stock market to cause mass panic in the

Cyber-attacks are common in the defense industry, but in January 2010, a sophisticated, advanced persistent threat hacked into the commercial sector forever changing the face of cyber security. Dubbed “Operation Aurora” by McAfee, the attack targeted specific high profile corporations to obtain valuable intellectual property. Google, Yahoo, Juniper Networks and Adobe Systems were also among the victims of this highly coordinated cyber heist. By manipulating computer codes the attackers were able to exploit the Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerabilities to gain access and obtain valuable sensitive information from over thirty high profile companies. Operation Aurora proves that the world is entering into a high-risk era where

Most nations today fear terror attacks that include bombing use of reinforcements like machines guns and other firearms. This is because terror attacks most of the times leave many people dead and others disabled while others are left without families. However, there is another attack today in many nations that can be destructive like a terror attack and this is the cyber-attack and threats. Cyber-attacks can be responsible for large mass destructions by making all systems connected to cyber networks fail to work (Rhodes 20). An example is the Morris worm that affected the world cyber infrastructures and caused them to slow down to a position of being impractical. Therefore, as a result of these cyber-attacks resources are being established and designed to help counter the attacks.

For thousands of years warfare remained relatively unchanged. While the tactics and weapons have changed as new methods of combat evolved, men and women or their weapons still had to meet at the same time and place in order to attack, defend, surrender or conquer. However, the advent of the of the internet has created a new realm of combat in which armies can remotely conduct surveillance, reconnaissance, espionage, and attacks from an ambiguous and space-less digital environment. Both state and non-state actors have already embraced this new realm and utilized both legal and illegal means to further facilitate their interests. What complicates cyber security further is as states attempt to protect themselves from cyber-warfare, private

Two of the common known attacks on computing systems are the deployment of computer viruses and malware.

In the previous five years, cybersecurity has turned into the most looked for after calling around the world. More than 90 percent of respondents to an overview directed by the Ponemon Institute (2011) detailed being a casualty to cyberattacks amid the most recent year, costing all things considered more than $2 million for each association. This number keeps on ascending as the two programmers and security devices progress. As indicated by PwC, roughly 33% of all U.S. organizations are as of now utilizing digital protection (Lindros and Tittel, 2016).

Cyber warfare attacks can disable official websites and networks, disrupt or disable essential services, steal or alter classified data, and cripple financial systems -- among many other possibilities (definition of cyberwarfare) “.The Tech Target definition includes no reference of nation states. That is because cyber warfare has such a low barrier to entry, a teenager can effectively shut down or damage thousands or millions of dollars of digital infrastructure, something that a real world counterpart would take years to plan, would take weeks, and the only tools needed are a mouse, keyboard, and some type of motivation. Cyber warfare is constantly evolving, constantly becoming more of a threat and is, in fact, being employed right now as this sentence is being read.

Cyberterrorism is generally understood to refer to highly damaging computer-based attacks or threats of attack by non-state actors against