As Far As We Know

„From this place, and from this day forth begins a new era in the history of the world, and you can all say that you were present at its birth.“ — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We haven’t been there, we didnt see it, and we don’t know the place.

But as far as we can tell, one of the first days of July 2009 saw the first successful attack against a military target by a computer virus, or rather, a worm.  And I am not talking about defacing a couple of websites with a DDos attack by a couple of disaffectes script-kiddies like the “cyber attack” on Estonia in 2007.  The attack in the Summer of 2009 was different in several aspects, if we interpret the available information correctly:

• It was conducted by an goverment agecy or an entity capable of mustering similar intelligence ressources
• It was conducted by someone not caring about polital or economical fallout, if the source of the attack became public – which points to a government agency rather to a company
• It targeted a specific installation instead of randomly attacking publicly accessible website
• It required “boots on the ground” in order to plant the first code into the targeted network
• Its outcome remained a secret for more than a year

I am talking, of course, of the Stuxnet worm, whose existence was publicly acknowledged only a couple of weeks ago, and which seems to have been targeted at the Iranian nuclear program.  The action at the intersection of computer security and intelligence means few reliable informations can be found, but a few deductions can be made from the available news.

It looks like Iran was the target. Going for the enrichment facilities with its several thousand identical machines seems to make indefinitly more sense than targeting a reactor which completion hinges on the consent of its russian builders. Having several thousand targets makes it more likely to be able to reach a significant number of them with a virus or a worm. And from what Wikileaks and other bits and pieces on the tubes tell us, someone indeed succeeded in hampering the Iranian efforts to enrich Uranium, even if they were unable to stop the program completely.

Obviously the attack was leaked after its successful conclusion, though of course in a way that did not really enable anyone to effectively lay blame on the attackers or identify the precise angle of attack. Most likely, the attack wasn’t a singular effort but bar of a concerted strategy to hinder the iranian efforts. Which, considering the fact that its president has repeatedly sworn to wipe Israel of the map,  publicly denies the Holocaust and generally speaks of the West in a langauge usually reserved for barroom brawls, is the most decent thing to do, as long as most countries seem to be weary to sacrifice their trade relationships “just” because another madman might get some nukes.

Whatever the final outcome, July 2009 sets a patern we will most likely see repeated in the future, of attacks on infrastructure and research and government facilities, conducted by intelligence agencies on behalf of governments with the capabilities to physical access to said infrastructures. Lets hope that most of those fights will end as unbloody as Valmy for a long time.