Stuxnet a harbinger of new age in cyber-warfare?

The recent Stuxnet worm attack is sparking lots of discussion and speculation about the intent, purpose, origins and most importantly - the identity of the attacker and target.

Kaspersky Lab has not seen enough evidence to identify the attackers or the intended target, but can confirm that this is a one-of-a-kind, sophisticated malware attack backed by a well-funded, highly skilled attack team with intimate knowledge of SCADA technology. Kaspersky Lab believes that this type of attack could only be conducted with nation-state support and backing.

"I think that this is the turning point - in the past there were just cyber-criminals, now I am afraid that it is the time of cyber-terrorism, cyber-weapons and cyber-wars," said Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder and chief executive officer of Kaspersky Lab.

Opening a Pandora's Box

Speaking at the Kaspersky Security Symposium with international journalists in Munich, Germany, Kaspersky described Stuxnet as the opening of "Pandora's Box." "This malicious program was not designed to steal money, send spam, grab personal data, no, this piece of malware was designed to sabotage plants, to damage industrial systems," he said.

"I am afraid this is the beginning of a new world. The '90s were a decade of cyber-vandals, 2000's were a decade of cybercriminals, now it is a new era of cyber-wars and cyber-terrorism," Kaspersky added.

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab independently discovered that the worm exploited four separate zero-day vulnerabilities. Our analysts reported three of these new vulnerabilities directly to Microsoft and co-ordinated closely with the vendor during the creation and release of software fixes. In addition to exploiting four zero-day vulnerabilities, Stuxnet also used two valid certificates (from Realtek and JMicron) which helped to keep the malware under the radar for quite a long period of time.

Stuxnet's primary goal is to conduct sabotage

The worm's ultimate aim was to access Simatic WinCC SCADA, used as industrial control systems that monitor and control industrial, infrastructure, or facility-based processes. Similar systems are widely used in oil pipelines, power plants, large communication systems, airports, ships, and even military installations globally.

The inside knowledge of SCADA technology, the sophistication of the multi-layered attack, the use of multiple zero-day vulnerabilities and legitimate certificates bring us to an understanding that Stuxnet was created by a team of extremely skilled professionals who possessed vast resources and financial support.

The target of the attack and the geography of its outbreak (primarily Iran) suggest that this was not a regular cyber-criminal group. Moreover, our security experts who analysed the worm code insist that Stuxnet's primary goal was not to spy on infected systems, but to conduct sabotage. All the facts listed above indicate that Stuxnet development was likely to be backed by a nation state, which had strong intelligence data at its disposal.

Kaspersky Lab believes that Stuxnet is a working - and fearsome - prototype of a cyber-weapon, that will lead to the creation of a new arms race in the world. This time it will be a cyber-arms race.