The nation-state sponsored malware arms race is on. Stuxnet may have been the “Shot heard round the world” but we think its likely that 2012 will witness a number of other skirmishes, with malware linked to foreign governments hostile to (or allied with) U.S. and Western nations infecting and disrupting critical infrastructure from power generation to telecommunications to water treatment. The warning signs are already there – evidence of infected SCADA systems can readily be found online. Internet facing SCADA and industrial control systems are readily identifiable using tools like the (free) Shodan scanner, while hackers and gray hat security researchers have used targeted attacks to expose poorly secured or mis-configured industrial control systems. Cyber war would be a stretch, but expect more Stuxnet-like proof of concept attacks in 2012 – perhaps even within the U.S. – that ratchet up international tensions.
Stuxnet Part II, III and IV
The nation-state sponsored malware arms race is on. Stuxnet may have been the “Shot heard round the world” but we think its likely that 2012 will witness a number of other skirmishes, with malware linked to foreign governments hostile to (or allied with) U.S.
