Latest Virus on the Net
A computer virus targeting industrial control systems provides a blueprint for a new generation of cyberweapons. Stuxnet is no ordinary virus.
It will do damage only if it worms its way into a particular industrial control system made by Siemens. These “programmable logic controllers,” as they’re known, are used to control automated processes in some key industrial settings, including chemical plants, oil refineries, pipelines, and perhaps most important, nuclear power plants. So far, it has caused damage only at two facilities in Iran—a nuclear plant in Bushehr and a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz—which has some experts speculating that the worm was built specifically to sabotage the Iranian nuclear industry. Host Steven Cherry talks with security expert Ralph Langner, who cracked many of the virus’s secrets, about why Stuxnet is just the beginning of many more industry-targeted cyberattacks yet to come.
