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Semiconductor manufacturers in Taiwan can remotely disable their chip-making machines in the event of a Chinese invasion. (www.bloomberg.com)

submitted 7 months ago by boem to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

remember the stuxnet botnet, and how nobody knew what it was for?

turns out it was programmed to activate in the very specific conditions inside the iranian nuclear reactor facilities and sabotage it. the facility was airgapped but stuxnet was so ubiquitous in the country by then, someone just needed to bring the first usb stick in for it to be a pwn. or so goes the story.

iirc the us and israel admitted to doing it years later, it was somewhere in the obama era and they wanted to sabotage iran's nuclear program. the systems remained infected for years reporting bogus data and slightly messing with the parameters so it never worked well and their scientists remained stumped until the virus was discovered.

shows how vulnerable our systems really are to organizations with unlimited money.

[–] masquenox 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah... and now the Iranians have Stuxnet, too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

i'd be surprised if stuff like it werent way more common today.

[–] thallamabond 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So? Those backdoors have been closed since 2010 (probably earlier). Also not too many people have an Iranian Nuclear program.

[–] masquenox 5 points 7 months ago

The experts don't share your optimism.

In the same report, Sean McGurk, a former cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security noted that the Stuxnet source code could now be downloaded online and modified to be directed at new target systems. Speaking of the Stuxnet creators, he said, "They opened the box. They demonstrated the capability... It's not something that can be put back."

Dealing with Stuxnet has probably advanced Iranian cyberwarfare capablilites by several orders of magnitude that they wouldn't have otherwise. That's the problem with using this stuff as weaponry - they don't explode.