Iran confirms massive Stuxnet infection of industrial systems

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9188018/Iran_confirms_massive_Stuxnet_infection_of_industrial_systems

By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld
September 25, 2010

Officials in Iran have confirmed that the Stuxnet worm infected at least 
30,000 Windows PCs in the country, multiple Iranian news services 
reported on Saturday.

Experts from Iran's Atomic Energy Organization also reportedly met this 
week to discuss how to remove the malware.

Stuxnet, considered by many security researchers to be the most 
sophisticated malware ever, was first spotted in mid-June by 
VirusBlokAda, a little-known security firm based in Belarus. A month 
later Microsoft acknowledged that the worm targeted Windows PCs that 
managed large-scale industrial-control systems in manufacturing and 
utility companies.

Those control systems, called SCADA, for "supervisory control and data 
acquisition," operate everything from power plants and factory machinery 
to oil pipelines and military installations.

According to researchers with U.S.-based antivirus vendor Symantec, Iran 
was hardest hit by Stuxnet. Nearly 60% of all infected PCs in the 
earliest-known infection were located in that country.

[...]


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