Richard Clarke on who was behind the Stuxnet attack
April 5, 2012 | Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Siemens Simatic S7-3 with three I/O modules attached, targeted by Stuxnet (credit: Palatinatian/Wikimedia Commons)
The United States created the Stuxnet cyberworm attack on Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment facility, says former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.
Problem: “thousands of people around the world have it and are playing with it,” he says. “And if I’m right, the best cyberweapon the United States has ever developed, it then gave the world for free.”
What’s more, the U.S. has developed the capability to conduct an offensive cyberwar, but we have virtually no defense against a cyberattack that could bring down our nation’s entire electronic infrastructure, including the power grid, banking and telecommunications, and even our military command system, Clarke says in his book, Cyber War.
In addition, “Every major company in the United States has already been penetrated by China” — including our supply chain of chips, routers and hardware we import from Chinese and other foreign suppliers,” he believes, which could include “weaponized malware” that would result in loss of U.S. military power.
Comments (8)
by Michael
In time will we worship the man with a mole on his chin?
by Ryan Russon
Sheesh… Some people just can’t stop hating Clarke for revealing some of the ugly truths of the Bush administration’s skulduggery. Get over it.
by skeeter
Clarke is an idiot! He would have Iran with Nuclear weapons rather then use stuxnet for fear that it could be copied! The fact that once you use a secret weapon then the enemy could copy is nothing new to the history of all military interventions. At some point you need to use your secret weapons and then come up with new and better ones for next time. The stupid alternative is to lose a war, battle, etc because you are saving it for out of fear and ignorance!
by Editor
Skeeter: I think Clarke was pointing out that there was an unknown glitch in the code that didn’t make it self-delete, as intended. It’s not clear to me how such a design would work or if it could work.
by dbacchus
This is the main problem (or maybe blessing) with cyber weapons: they are digital boomerangs that only get sharper when they return. Clarke wrote an interesting book, it seems.
by Anon
This guy didn’t know cyber from shinola when he was given power. He still doesn’t but if he can make a buck or fame he will obviously say anything.
by Four
Nice try, but aliens designed Stuxnet, and my book telling all about it will be out soon. Chinese people are also aliens. That info will be in another book….
by kevin mcgrath
Richard Clarke is a FUD spreading a-hole who needs to just go away.