The Future is Arriving

By BJ Bjornson

It is one of those staples of apocalyptic science fiction; one of two sides locked in a long-term adversarial struggle decides to unleash some grand biological weapon, a supervirus of sorts, aimed at wiping out their enemy, only things spin out of control, the virus spreads, and the creators join the targets and innocent bystanders as its victims.

Fortunately, the biological version of this has remained fictional, but it appears that a technological version of the story is already becoming reality.

The technology industry is being rattled by a quiet and sophisticated malicious software program that has infiltrated factory computers.

The malware, known as Stuxnet, was discovered in mid July, at least several months after its creation, by VirusBlokAda, a Belarussian computer security company that was alerted by a customer.

. . .

Eric Chien, the technical director of Symantec Security Response, a security software maker that has studied Stuxnet, said it appears that the malware was created to attack an Iranian industrial facility. Security experts say that it was likely staged by a government or government-backed group, in light of the significant expertise and resources required to create it. The specific facility that was in Stuxnet�s crosshairs is not known, though speculation has centered on gas and nuclear installations.

. . .

Exactly what Stuxnet might command industrial equipment to do still isn�t known. But malware experts say it could have been designed to trigger such Hollywood-style bedlam as overloaded turbines, exploding pipelines and nuclear centrifuges spinning so fast that they break. �The true end goal of Stuxnet is cyber sabotage. It�s a cyber weapon basically,� said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky, a security software maker. �But how it exactly manifests in real life, I can�t say.�

 
With the increasing reliance of our technological civilization on computers and networks, cyberattacks have become something of a common occurrence in the last several years, though previous manifestations, like that suffered by Estonia during a dispute with Russia, were generally more swarm-based hacker attacks rather than what appears to be a state-sponsored viral sabotage campaign. Still, it is quite easy to see this kind of thing escalating and evolving in the very near future, with players soon including corporations targeting competitors as well as the state-on-state versions, followed no doubt by other non-state actors.

It should prove an interesting time.