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Security expert explains why Stuxnet virus attack on Iran was unique

Iran Materials 23 March 2012 09:18 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, March 23/ Trend S. Isayev/

Stuxnet attack on Iran was unique because of throttling the weaponized payload to Siemens applications and programmable logic controllers (PLC), as well as other characteristics that would have been indicative of Iranian property, founder of WAF Enterprises, former Director of Emerging Security Technologies at IBM mobile, Amrit Williams told Trend.

The expert was commenting on recent news about Iran developing an anti-Stuxnet virus software, to protect itself from possible future cyber attacks.

The Islamic Republic has announced that the anti-virus software will be available to the wide public for free, in about a month. So far, Iran relies on anti-virus programmes developed by other countries.

Explaining the techniques utilized by Stuxnet, Williams said they are shared by many forms of malware, such as self-propagating worm, a multi-vector attack (4 different zero-day vulnerabilities) with a root-kit to hide itself as system files and others.

In 2010, Iran's industrial and nuclear computer systems were attacked by the Stuxnet worm. The worm was a malware designed to infect computers using Siemens Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) - a control system favoured by industries that manage water supplies, oil rigs and power plants.

"It is highly likely that similar attacks have been used by cyber criminals to focus on a specific target, this would be done by limiting the weapons payload to a specific application or other characteristics that are representative of their targets," Williams explained.

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