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Experts Fighting Dangerous Computer Virus

Compiled by Mohammad Fazaeli

Secretary of the Information Technology Council of the Ministry of Industries said close to 30,000 internet providers (IPs) infected by the ‘Stuxnet’ computer worm have been identified.
Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Mahmoud Liayi said the Stuxnet spy worm has been created in line with the West’s electronic warfare against Iran, saying the virus transfers industrial information out of the country, Mehr News Agency reported.
Recalling that most of office automation systems in Iran and other countries are produced under the SCADA-Siemens brand, he said “These systems are the main target of the worm, and even if the infected IPs are rid of it, the danger will persist until the virus has not been completely eliminated from the country”.
He added “When activated, Stuxnet starts transmitting data about industrial production lines and office automation to the destination determined for it. There, the data is processed by the architects of the worm to hatch plots against the country.”
Iran’s industrial systems and units are being equipped with a special anti-virus system to fight Stuxnet, he said, and urged companies not to use the anti-virus softwares presented by SCADA-Siemens since they could be carrying new versions of the worm or a special mechanism to upgrade it.

Special Working Group
The official opined that the intent behind the production and propagation of Stuxnet is very likely a government project, emphasizing that the worm is not a normal virus or spam.
He said a working group has been former that consists of representatives from related ministries and executive bodies to fight the worm.

No Serious Damage
The Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology Reza Taqipour said Stuxnet has not inflicted much damage on the industrial systems.
“No serious damage to industrial systems [caused by Stuxnet] has been reported in the country,” Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying Saturday.
“So far the worm has not been able to penetrate or cause serious damage in to government systems…However, institutions that are not using the proper security tools are under threat by this [Stuxnet] virus.”
There are tools to counter Stuxnet, he said. “If the available equipment is not enough to fight the virus, the Information Ministry’s experts are ready to help rid the systems off the worm.”
The Managing Director of the Information Technology Company Saeid Mahdiyoon said expert teams have begun work to cleanup Stuxnet through-out the country.
“Special teams have begun the virus elimination process,” Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying Saturday.

US, Israel Involved
Experts believe that the computer worm that has targeted Iran’s industrial sites may be part of a cyber-attack by the US or Israel against the Islamic Republic.
Stuxnet, viewed as potentially the most dangerous piece of computer malware discovered, has targeted industrial computers in Iran.
The complex worm recognizes a specific facility’s control network and then destroys it.
Experts say the worm, which has a very sophisticated design, may have been created by a state-sponsored organization in the US or Israel to target specific control software being used in the Iranian industrial sector, including the country’s first nuclear reactor in the southeastern Persian Gulf port city of Bushehr.
“All the details so far to me scream that this was created by a nation-state,” Bloomberg quoted Frank Rieger, technology chief for a maker of encrypted mobile phones, as saying in Washington on Saturday.
“Iran’s nuclear facilities may have been the targets,” said both Rieger and Richard Falkenrath of the Chertoff Group, a Washington-based security advisory firm.
“It is theoretically possible that the US government did this,” Falkenrath said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Saturday. “But in my judgment, that’s a very remote possibility. It’s more likely that Israel did it.”
Meanwhile, a top US cyber-security official claimed that the US does not know who is behind the cyber-attack and is still analyzing the worm.
“We’ve conducted analysis on the software itself,” Sean McGurk, director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, told reporters in Washington on Friday.
“It’s very difficult to say ‘This is what it was targeted to do,’” he said, adding that the center was not looking for those behind the attack but it rather sought to prevent the spread.
The US and Israel claim Iran is secretly developing a nuclear weapons program. Iran rejects the allegation, saying its nuclear program only serves peaceful purposes.

It Is Official: The US Is a Police State

By Paul Craig Roberts

On September 24, Jason Ditz reported on Antiwar.com that “the FBI is confirming that this morning they began a number of raids against the homes of antiwar activists in Illinois, Minneapolis, Michigan, and North Carolina, claiming that they are ‘seeking evidence relating to activities concerning the material support of terrorism.’”
Now we know what Homeland Security (sic) secretary Janet Napolitano meant when she said on September 10: “The old view that ‘if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won’t have to fight them here’ is just that -- the old view.” The new view, Napolitano said, is “to counter violent extremism right here at home.”
“Violent extremism” is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning’s FBI foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience, it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with “the material support of terrorism,” just as conservatives equated Vietnam era antiwar protesters with giving material support to communism.
Antiwar activist Mick Kelly, whose home was raided, sees the FBI raids as harassment to intimidate those who organize war protests. I wonder if Kelly is underestimating the threat. The FBI’s own words clearly indicate that the federal police agency and the judges who signed the warrants do not regard antiwar protesters as Americans exercising their Constitutional rights, but as unpatriotic elements offering material support to terrorism. “Material support” is another of those undefined police state terms. In this context the term means that Americans who fail to believe their government’s lies and instead protest its policies, are supporting their government’s declared enemies and, thus, are not exercising their civil liberties but committing treason.

Real Terrorists
As this initial FBI foray is a softening up move to get the public accustomed to the idea that the real terrorists are their fellow citizens here at home, Kelly will get off this time. But next time the FBI will find emails on his computer from a “terrorist group” set up by the CIA that will incriminate him.
Under the practices put in place by the Bush and Obama regimes, and approved by corrupt federal judges, protesters who have been compromised by fake terrorist groups can be declared “enemy combatants” and sent off to Egypt, Poland, or some other corrupt American puppet state -- Canada perhaps -- to be tortured until confession is forthcoming that antiwar protesters and, indeed, every critic of the US government, are on Osama bin Laden’s payroll.
Almost every Republican and conservative and, indeed, the majority of Americans will fall for this, only to find, later, that it is subversive to complain that their Social Security was cut in the interest of the war against Iran or some other demonized entity, or that they couldn’t have a Medicare operation because the wars in Central Asia and South America required the money.

Gullible Folks
Americans are the most gullible people who ever existed. They tend to support the government instead of the Constitution, and almost every Republican and conservative regards civil liberty as a coddling device that encourages criminals and terrorists.
The US media, highly concentrated in violation of the American principle of a diverse and independent media, will lend its support to the witch hunts that will close down all protests and independent thought in the US over the next few years. As the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels said, “think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
An American Police State was inevitable once Americans let “their” government get away with 9/11. Americans are too gullible, too uneducated, and too jingoistic to remain a free people. As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”
This is precisely what the Bush and Obama regimes have done. America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.
Source: antiwar.com

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