Israel’s Cyber Weapons

Israel is one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world.  There are many reasons for this and it is a topic that has been analyzed by authors and academics for decades.  At the end of the day, though, people do whatever they have to do for survival.

The Stuxnet worm is a computer virus rapidly spreading to industrial computer systems around the world.  It is one of the most complex viruses ever created.  Many security analysts believe that the virus was created by a government agency as it would have taken a lot of time and resources to develop.  One intelligence analyst believes that the virus came from Unit 8200, the Israeli counterpart of the NSA.

But what is Stuxnet going to do?  It was engineered to infect a computer system with no user interaction.  It only had to be sitting on a USB memory stick (aka flash drive) and be inserted into a computer.  At that point, the virus was loose.

It has caused minimal damage around the world, but some think it is a ticking time bomb.  It is just waiting for the right moment to cause extreme damage to a specific target.  I hope, and many believe, that the target is the Iranian nuclear program.  Ralph Langner, a German engineer, told the Christian Science Monitor:

“Stuxnet is a 100-percent-directed cyber attack aimed at destroying an industrial process in the physical world,” says Langner, who last week became the first to publicly detail Stuxnet’s destructive purpose and its authors’ malicious intent. “This is not about espionage, as some have said. This is a 100 percent sabotage attack.”

The Bushir reactor and other Iranian sites give Iran the growing ability to create a nuclear bomb.  I could imagine Israelis, the United States, or a number of other capable countries would take a relatively covert step to create a physical world result.  I hope it works.