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Cyber & Critical Infrastructure

STUXNET

What a covert weapon proved was possible

Type
Research Paper
Year
2022
Domain
Cyber
Author
Andrew Azadan

(U) The claim

STUXNET's real consequence was not the damage it did but the proof it published: that this class of attack works, and the code base it left for others to study.

The paper reconstructs the strategic setting — Israeli and American concern over Iranian nuclear proliferation, and the search for an option between sanction and a preemptive strike that would have escalated. STUXNET was the result: malware exploiting multiple zero-days against specific hardware.

It has proven such attacks possible, raised awareness of them and perhaps interest in them among malicious entities, and provided a sophisticated code base for malware authors to study and modify.
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