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Power Security Worms IT

Iran Forced To Replace Centrifuges To Stop Stuxnet 204

Posted by Soulskill from the going-to-have-to-amputate dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "Reports that Iran had recovered from the infection of the Stuxnet worm may have been overblown, as a new report suggests the country is being forced to replace thousands of expensive centrifuges damaged by the worm. The report from the website DEBKAfile cites 'intelligence sources' in claiming that Stuxnet was not purged from Iran's nuclear sites and that the country was never able to return its uranium enrichment efforts to 'normal operation.' Instead, the country has said in recent days that it is installing newer and faster centrifuges at its nuclear plants and intends to speed up the uranium enrichment process, according to the country's foreign ministry."
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Iran Forced To Replace Centrifuges To Stop Stuxnet More

Iran Forced To Replace Centrifuges To Stop Stuxnet

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  • Nuclear Iran. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25, 2011 @01:55PM (#36873368)

    Iran believes they need nuclear weapons to be taken seriously. Why? Because they have seen that when a country has nuclear capability no one, especially the US, fucks with them.

    The World is going to have to pay for generations the complete and utter fucked up foreign US policy - even when we're a broke run down ex-Super Power.

    • Re:Nuclear Iran. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @02:00PM (#36873438)
      Really, we aren't performing drone strikes, incursions, and firefights with Pakistan's border patrols on a daily basis? No, nuclear weapons alone does not make you immune from US military involvement, having a stable and friendly government is the only way to partially insure that.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Desler ( 1608317 )

        having a pro-US dictatorship is the only way to partially insure that.

        FTFY.

        • That's a sufficient (but not necessary) condition to having a "friendly" government, if we make the reasonable assumption that when afidel said friendly he meant friendly to the US.

        • Man. Then that really sucks. Because Iran used to be a pro-US dictatorship. WTF do we do now?
        • having a pro-US dictatorship is the only way to partially insure that.
          Tell that to Mubarak

          • having a pro-US dictatorship is the only way to partially insure that.
            Tell that to Mubarak

            afaik no military operations by the US in Egypt, did you miss the context?

            No, nuclear weapons alone does not make you immune from US military involvement, having a stable and friendly government is the only way to partially insure that.

        • If your choice is between a pro-US Dictatorship, and a dictatorship that is anti-US, which would you choose?

          Sometimes the world doesn't give you fluffy bunny rabbits, sometimes it is rattlesnakes it gives you.

          • If your choice is between a pro-US Dictatorship, and a dictatorship that is anti-US, which would you choose? Sometimes the world doesn't give you fluffy bunny rabbits, sometimes it is rattlesnakes it gives you.

            I would choose neither. If your chosen rattlesnake usually turns around and bites you after you feed it, shouldn't it make you think twice about playing with rattlesnakes?

            The US is not obliged to go propping up and supporting dictatorships the world over, and it would be far, far better for the long-term interests of the US if they stopped fucking up countries like Pakistan with huge amounts of cash and military equipment and instead supplied only food and other strictly civilian assistance. Pakistan has be

        • No, not being actively opposed to US interests is the key. And that's not a unique position for the US, it's common throughout history to all nations (and people) who have the power to enforce their views.

          Nobody wants Iran to have nukes because Iran has been busy painting itself as an irrational radical, possibly just crazy enough to actually lob a nuke at Israel, provoke a major response from the US, and cause a major fire storm across the region to drag us all into another world war.

          Given the alternative

          • The threat from Iran is not that they would launch an attack against Israel or anyone else with the capability to strike back but they would have no problems with threatening to provide the nuclear capable weapons to non-state actors. Their threat has never been that they would use the weapons it's the threat of being able to provide these weapons to 3rd parties. And the first non-state actor that gets their hands on a nuke will detonate it somewhere in the world with no cares about retaliation. MADD would

            • MADD would not be in play.

              I hadn't realized that Mothers Against Drunk Driving had gotten involved in nuclear non-proliferation. Talk about mission creep....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chrb ( 1083577 )

        Really, we aren't performing drone strikes, incursions, and firefights with Pakistan's border patrols on a daily basis?

        No, I can assure you that if U.S. forces and the Pakistani military were waging war against each other, then we would hear about it. The U.S. drone strikes etc. are being carried out with the permission and cooperation of the Pakistani military and political ruling class. Around 4,000 Pakistani security members have been killed [wikipedia.org] by local hostiles in the last decade, not by the U.S..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Tell that to Qaddafi! He got the message from the Iraq war. Don't support terrorism against the USA or its allies, and control your people and territories well enough they are not used for terrorism against the USA or its allies, or else you might get regime changed and that won't be fun. Qaddafi's government was stable and friendly towards us.

        Know what we attacked him ANYWAY! Why I have no idea, especially because we don't know who the rebels are or if they will be a better partner in the future. Qadd

        • Tell that to Qaddafi!

          Qaddafi has been a pain in the ass to the US for a very long time now. An overthrow of Qaddafi does two things. One, it likely brings in better players and two, buys good will from the Muslim world.

          Right now, one of THE biggest weapons extremists have in their bag of weapons is misinformation, propaganda, and flat out lies; whereby the US (and the West) is generally the scapegoat for everything. Thusly, which is why, "America is Satan", is farted daily. Literally, they still recruit by claiming the Crusades

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            "Didn't they just help millions of Muslims?"

            It will be an amazing stroke of luck if that is the take away. Qaddafi is not seen as an enemy of Islam thought most of the Muslim world. Libya is a pretty secular place as far as the middle east goes. The Rebels may be less secular than the pro-Qaddafi Libyians but I really don't think this fight is being seen as jihad.

            I'd be quite surprised if this buys us much good will outside Libya, at all.

            • Qaddafi is not seen as an enemy of Islam thought most of the Muslim world.

              By Sharia law, Qaddafi is an enemy of the Muslim world. For Qaddafi to not be an enemy is for someone to profess they are not Muslim, or are extremely creative in their re-interpretation of Sharia and Islam.

              I'd be quite surprised if this buys us much good will outside Libya, at all.

              Seemingly a position taken based on complete ignorance of that world. You're not exactly validating anything; other than uninformed opinion.

          • "One, it likely brings in better players"

            What is the basis for your optimism? Qaddafi is an ass, that is for sure, and so was the Shaw of Iran, and look how taking him out helped US Iranian relations.

            • That reply squarely implies YOU'VE been buying the media propaganda. You honestly think for a second, contrary to the media propaganda, organizations such as the CIA don't know who they are supporting? The US would NEVER commit sizable forces to support their enemy. And it sure as hell wouldn't do it on a question mark; as was ignorantly depicted in media reports. If they didn't know who they were supporting, at best, you'd see a very limited number of air strikes from US/NATO forces. The fact NATO was so w

              • Two words invalidate your entire argument, Saddam Hussein. The same people who decried him in the previous decades were the ones praising him in the 80s. I wish Saddam had worn the golden spurs he got from Rumsfeld the day he was executed to show the world what hypocrites the neocons are.

                • Actually, contrary to your assertion, you post only indicates you have no idea what you're talking about. Please go learn some history. If only you could delete your post to hide your ignorance.

              • You honestly think for a second, contrary to the media propaganda, organizations such as the CIA don't know who they are supporting?

                Absolutely!

      • Really, we aren't performing drone strikes, incursions, and firefights with Pakistan's border patrols on a daily basis? No, nuclear weapons alone does not make you immune from US military involvement, having a stable and friendly government is the only way to partially insure that.

        Extremely bad example. The US is basically propping up the entire Pakistani government. The US has more or less free reign to whatever its wants in Pakistani so long as the government can freely denounce it on TV and radio. Realistically, Pakistan needs to be nuked to ensure all of their nukes are destroyed. If the US backed government falls, chances are very high a terrorist nuke will originate from Pakistan. Pragmatically, nuking Pakistan isn't an option though realistically, its likely the best option to

        • Realistically, Pakistan needs to be nuked to ensure all of their nukes are destroyed. If the US backed government falls, chances are very high a terrorist nuke will originate from Pakistan. Pragmatically, nuking Pakistan isn't an option though realistically, its likely the best option to ensure the minimal number of innocent (as in peace loving, non-extremists) people actually get nuked.

          Fuck you.

          No, I'm not elaborating on that and I don't particularly care about the karma, just wanted to get that sai

      • having a stable and friendly government is the only way to partially insure that.

        - you have to specify what it is that you mean by 'friendly' and 'stable', because whatever those 2 terms mean, they cannot mean 'democratic' and 'elected' [wikipedia.org].

    • So you mean having your leaders killed but then fighting an insurgent war for almost 10 years wasting 100s of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives. If Iran were serious about wanting to destroy the Great Satan TM this sounds like one of the better approaches.

      • Re:Nuclear Iran. (Score:4, Informative)

        by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @02:26PM (#36873734)

        So you mean having your leaders killed but then fighting an insurgent war for almost 10 years wasting 100s of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives. If Iran were serious about wanting to destroy the Great Satan TM this sounds like one of the better approaches.

        Note that Iran lost an admitted 188000 dead (and an estimated 500K-1M dead) during their almost-eight-year-long war with Iraq.

        We've lost a total of just over 6000 fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan over a similar period.

        Somehow, I don't think that Iran would see us losing 1/30th the number of men they lost fighting Iraq (which they couldn't defeat, but we did - twice) as a "better approach".

        And this not even counting population disparities. They have 1/4 our population, and lost 30 (low end) to 160 (high end) times as many people as we did fighting in Iraq....

        • What? Iraq attacked Iran. Iran fought Iraq to a standstill. The cost was horrific, but Iran won - Iraq did not gain territory. Iran learned from that lesson. They will still take unlimited casualties if they have to in order to defend their borders, but they will not be using human wave assaults again. They are geared up and trained for a guerrilla defense this time, and are likely better prepared to defend against airstrikes than any nation we have faced in a hot war since Germany.

          Oh, and a full scale assa

    • Re:Nuclear Iran. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kevinNCSU ( 1531307 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @02:09PM (#36873530)

      Because they have seen that when a country has nuclear capability no one, especially the US, fucks with them.

      Yea, we would definitely never ever fuck with Russia even a little bit in the entire history of it having nuclear weapons, and certainly not Pakistan since they're nuclear armed. Well at least we wouldn't bomb them. No? We're doing that? Oh. Well, maybe just a few missiles, but we would certainly never send any troops into their territory without permission and kill- oh? oh.....wait, never mind, what are we saying again?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amorsen ( 7485 )

        Yes, the US messes with nuclear-armed nations, but with the promise to let the dictators stay in power. Having nuclear weapons saves the dictators from the fate of Saddam Hussein. Nuclear weapons are not much help for democratic leaders who happen to be anti-US.

      • Re:Nuclear Iran. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @02:39PM (#36873890) Homepage Journal
        no, what you're describing is not "Fucking with them".

        Fucking with them would be, launching airstrikes and cruise missiles on Pakistani capital trying to kill the leaders of the Pakistani government. Which is precisely what Obama/Hillary is doing in Libya.

        Kaddafi has no nukes, so Obama is free to bomb Libya.

        Pakistan has nukes, so he can't do that even if they suddenly decide today they hate the US and announce an alliance with Al Qaeda and declare jihad.

        Best thing to do would've been for USA to mind its own fucking business and not get involved in the territorial disputes and internal politics of the Middle East. Btw this isn't an Obama bashing session, Dubya was three times worse than him, and actually it goes all the way back to Churchill and FDR, when they decided to play Emperor and carve out new nation-states on a whim.

        • and actually it goes all the way back to Churchill and FDR, when they decided to play Emperor and carve out new nation-states on a whim.

          It should be noted that, for the most part, the "carving out new nation-states on a whim" was done post WW1 by the British Foreign Minister (Winston Churchill, oddly enough).

          There was also a bit of this sort of thing post WW-2, but FDR was dead then, and Churchill was kicked out of office as soon as the War ended, so it's probably his successor you should be blaming.

        • Pakistan's nuclear arsenal most likely consists of warheads with yields comparable to Fat Man and Little Boy. It's delivery systems are most likely limited to those that can deliver these warheads to their immediate neighbors. The intention of the arsenal isn't to deter a super-power that sits on the other side of the world but to deter India.

          The US could bomb Pakistan at will and not face any consequences it does not already face. What's Pakistan going to do, promulgate information on how to build nuclear [wikipedia.org]

          • Holy shit! Its a rarity to find someone else who actually knows what they are talking about!

            You made my slashdot day.

          • well no, US cannot bomb pakistan at will simply because the pakistani don't possess ICBMs capable of reaching USA. North Korea doesn't either (or at least they didn't until very recently) and Dubya couldn't touch them because they might nuke S. Korea and Japan.

            US bombing Islamabad could very well result in Pakistan bombing India.

          • Well, I'd say they could smuggle a nuke into the US in an Afghan heroin shipment, but actually the US is pretty on top of the contents of those - ;-)

        • Fucking with them would be, launching airstrikes and cruise missiles on Pakistani capital trying to kill the leaders of the Pakistani government. Which is precisely what Obama/Hillary is doing in Libya.

          Minor correction: *was doing in libya*

          I don't believe any US aircraft are directly attacking Libyan targets.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Because Israel has them.

    • logically valid statement: "i am against iran and the usa having nukes, because nukes are the road to hell"

      trollish tribal statement: "if the usa has nukes, then the despotism of north korea, the theocracy of iran, and my kid's boy scout troop all deserve nuclear weapon's too"

    • Iran wants nukes so they can threaten Israel first and foremost, and after that, various Arab states in the region. There's really nothing more to it than that.

      The real concern, though, is whether hard-line Hezbollah-supporting elements will hand over an Iranian nuke to terrorists for actual use in Israel. And that's why you'll eventually see Israeli military action in Iran, whether or not the US gives their blessing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

      I remember listening to Bush's infamous "axis of evil" speech and thinking it was the biggest mistake I had ever seen a President make. No one else at the time seemed to recognize it as such, but the negative implications hit me immediately. There was nothing to gain by including Iran and North Korea in that speech. Iran in particular had a reasonably moderate government at the time and had even openly expressed condolences to the U.S. after 9-11. But by including them, then invading the third country in th

  • not credible (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25, 2011 @01:57PM (#36873398)

    DEBKAfile is not a credible source of news. I remember in Gulf War 2 when they were reporting on the imminent launch of WMD gas my Saddam on US forces. This should not be on slashdot.

  • Sounds fun as hell, and pretty probable too, TBH. Number one is hat Stuxnet got in there -before-; nothing keeps it from being re-inserted, possibly with modifications to avoid re-detection. Secondly is - think back to your corporate IT department and how often they make all their fixes right. They screw up sometimes, don't they?

    Trust me, the Iranian government's a lot worse. They've got less expertise, less experience, less skills, and a language barrier to deal with most the time. I'd consider it a safe

  • Consider the source (Score:5, Informative)

    by andy1307 ( 656570 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @02:12PM (#36873574)
    DEBKA is NOT a reliable source. It's Israeli disinformation.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debka.com [wikipedia.org]

    Wired.com's Noah Shachtman wrote in 2001 that the site "clearly reports with a point of view; the site is unabashedly in the hawkish camp of Israeli politics," adding that Debka had partnered with the right-wing news site WorldNetDaily for a weekly subscription product.[3] Yediot Achronot investigative reporter Ronen Bergman states that the site relies on information from sources with an agenda, such as neo-conservative elements of the US Republican Party, "whose worldview is that the situation is bad and is only going to get worse," and that Israeli intelligence officials do not consider even 10 percent of the site's content to be reliable.[1] Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf calls Debka his "favorite alarmist Israeli website trading in rumors."[4]

    • It's a site that often publishes rumors and other poorly-sourced information. That's not the same as disinformation.

    • Re:Consider the source (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swilde23 ( 874551 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @02:45PM (#36873964) Journal
      Not to antagonize here, but I am amused by someone saying "consider the source" linking to wikipedia to prove their point. (I don't necessarily doubt that Debka is "unabashedly in the hawkish camp of Israeli politics"... it's just the principle.)

      • I don't think Wikipedia is unreliable in the same way that Debka or the Weekly World News is unreliable (certainly some of its articles are, but most are not). I think the problem with using Wikipedia as a cite is that it's inherently malleable.

        I can provide a perfectly correct link to some massively cross-referenceed supporting document on wikipedia, and tomorrow that same link might point to a picture of Homer Simpson picking his nose. There's no way to be sure.

      • As you can see from the cut-n-paste, the Wikipedia article explicitly gives sources. There is almost no original text from the Wikipedia writer. I kind of see where you're coming from, but you fail at it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I cannot begin to describe how un-reliable Debka file is. It's not even disinformation, it's just a mid aged guy with a lap top sitting in his provincial home in Israel, making up stories. For some reason, foreign press often quotes it, but everyone in Israel knows it's BS.

  • Stuxnet 2 is coming!

  • Dont use industrial machines that run Windows....

    Just saying.....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shatrat ( 855151 )
      They don't, the computers used to configure the controllers do. This is a standard Siemens system they are using, it's not just Iran.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by alewar ( 784204 )
        then don't use windows computers to configure the controllers used by industrial machines.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 1s44c ( 552956 )

      Dont use industrial machines that run Windows....

      Just saying.....

      I agree totally. However if that's what the retards at Siemens give customers Iran has the choice to use it or reverse engineer it and setup their own software. Reverse engineering this stuff might well take years.

  • You're all missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by _0xd0ad ( 1974778 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @03:07PM (#36874264) Journal

    It's an editorial, for crying out loud. Of course it's biased.

    The real news is that Iran is scrapping somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 centrifuges and replacing them with "faster" and "improved" ones. They supposedly announced this in a press conference, so I presume this can be independently verified apart from DEBKA's claim?

    The rest of the article is conjecture, so feel free to come up with a better theory of why Iran is rebuilding their enrichment program from scratch.

  • Totally Fixable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 1s44c ( 552956 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @03:36PM (#36874628)

    Stuxnet is a really complex and well thought out windows worm but it's not magic and it can be beaten. Abusing holes in windows isn't some new thing that stuxnet invented.

    Dealing with windows worms isn't nearly as complex as creating them.

    Easy clean up process:
    1) Disconnect affected windows machines from your network.
    2) Overwrite the disks on these machines with zeros at least once.
    3) Physically break the USB, firewire, sound, floppy connectors, extra disk connectors, serial ports, parallel ports on the motherboard of these computers. Break them in such a way they can't be fixed without significant effort.
    4) Reinstall windows from clean CDs. Do not connect the machine to any network.
    5) Reinstall SCADA software from clean CDs. Do not connect the machine to any network.
    6) Setup one OpenBSD filtering bridge per SCADA control system to filter traffic to and from your new control machine and only allow traffic you have to. That means SCADA control traffic only. No windows update, no anti-virus updates, no domain authentications, no STP, and if possible not even ARP. Test with tcpdump and if 1 single network packet you don't fully understand gets though start again from step 1.

    Done.

    BTW I'm not a US citizen, a US visa holder, or in US controlled territory. I suspect that any US citizen or anyone in US controlled territory who assists Iran in any way is committing a criminal act. US export laws.. land of the free.. my arse.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You're assuming that none of the SCADA devices in the network are infected with a copy of the worm.

    • Can someone knowledgeable in setting up uranium enrichment plant systems explain us why do the machines have to be connected to not just a network, but the public Internet of all networks?

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 25, 2011 @04:35PM (#36875358)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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