Stuxnet was the worlds first known true cyber-weapon. Stuxnet was a worm transported on USB pen-drive sticks and designed to target centrifuges at Iranian nuclear processing facilities. Due to its complexity, it was widely believed to have been a joint effort of security services in Israel and USA, who wished to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear material for weapons, but neither ever confirmed this. It targetted parricular micro-processors that were used in the centrifuges and instructed them to drive the centrifuge motors in patterns that physically damaged them. However, the same micro-processor was used in other kinds of equipment and there were unconformed reports that Stuxnet had been found in Ukrainian and Russian nuclear power stations.
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Links:
- spectrum.ieee.org: IEEE Spectrum: The Real Story of Stuxnet
- wired.com: Wired: An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World's First Digital Weapon
- Wikipedia: Stuxnet