Commentary By Ron Beasley
In John's excellent post on the Stuxnet virus the question was why windows. As someone who spent most of his life as a manufacturing engineer I can answer that question. I was an engineer in a large manufacturing facilty in the late 70's. We had very complex processes and we saw the introduction of the microprocessor as a way to control those processes. Our first PLCs were designed and built in house from a board bucket purchased from Motorola. The operating system was written in house. Shortly thereafter PLCs became available from outside vendors. I worked with one of the first from Westinghouse. It used a proprietary operating system. As the digital age marched on and memory became cheap PLCs did more than control they also recorded data that was useful to engineers but it had to be available in a form that could be analyzed. That made it necessary for it to be in a format that could be used on personal computers nearly all of which were Windows based. By default the OS for the PLCs became Windows. Initially this was PC attached to the equipment but as inter facility networks became common the control and monitoring functions of the processes could be done from the engineer's desk. The next step was the internet and that computer on the engineer's desk was connected to the world. That's when it first became a potential problem.
Windows was chosen because it was cheaper than other options - a universal platform for all the PLCs in the factory.
Related post at The Moderate Voice
I thought Iran's system was a closed system. No connection to the internet. That means this infection came with the system or from someone on the job.
ReplyDeleteDang! No wonder you're such a whiz-bang blog doctor.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think you're right, especially if we're talking about a country outside the engineering and software development history stream you describe. When you're late to the party the good stuff is no longer available. Even if a handful of Iranian (or any other nooklar wannabe) engineers knew better, all they had was what they had... And it likely would have to be Windows.
Theranchik
ReplyDeleteEven a closed system is not really closed. Even if it's not connected to the internet or even the local network system upgrades and program upgrades will brought in from the outside via floppy disks, CDs or more recently memory sticks which supply the path for infections.
John
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the Iranians had the very latest from Seimens. The trojan was first noted in Germany and then India and other eastern locations.
I;m sure that Iran has no problem getting the very latest in industrial controls.
Ron, the name of the engineering conglomerate that employs more than 400,000 people worldwide is Siemens, not Seimens. It is more than 150 years old, i.e. was around when Bill Gates's Grand-Grand-Grand-Grandfather nailed together the shed for his horse-drawn buggy that generations later allegedly became the birthplace for Macrosoft.
ReplyDelete