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View Full Version : Obama ordered Stuxnet - NYT




ghengis86
06-01-2012, 10:04 AM
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.xml

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/obama-ordered-code-stux

From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America's first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.
*
Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks - begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games - even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran's Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.




Does he get another Peace Prize for this?

tsai3904
06-01-2012, 10:13 AM
[Obama] repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons — even under the most careful and limited circumstances — could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks.

Oh really?

Acala
06-01-2012, 10:14 AM
Hmmm . . . so WE intitiate the cyber war, then when they retalitate, our government must tighten its controls over the internet.

Kylie
06-01-2012, 10:26 AM
Yup. And we got to fund it all.

specsaregood
06-01-2012, 10:28 AM
Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks - begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games - even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran's Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet

Sounds to me like anybody that suffered financial damage due to it have a case.

pcosmar
06-01-2012, 10:57 AM
Obama?? I remember that shit out of Bush's mouth.

And several Republican presidential contenders bragging about it in the debates.

Does no one listen?? or remember?

Romulus
06-01-2012, 11:10 AM
I'm calling BS.. Obama is just the media 'tough guy' for what Israel intelligence is doing...

specsaregood
06-01-2012, 11:22 AM
I'm calling BS.. Obama is just the media 'tough guy' for what Israel intelligence is doing...

Still. If this is an act of war, and it seems our own government is saying they consider it so. Am I correct in assuming there is a congressional declaration of war, or at least a congressional authorization to use force laying around somewhere? Or do we just get the country into war secretly and without any congressional review nowadays?

Sounds impeachable...

pcosmar
06-01-2012, 11:26 AM
Still. If this is an act of war, and it seems our own government is saying they consider it so. Am I correct in assuming there is a congressional declaration of war, or at least a congressional authorization to use force laying around somewhere? Or do we just get the country into war secretly and without any congressional review nowadays?

Sounds impeachable...

It is selective memory disorder.. This shit started under Bush. (this particular shit) Obama is only continuing it.

In truth,, it likely was started before Bush (they all have the same bosses) but the first mention I heard was Bush Jr.

Romulus
06-01-2012, 11:42 AM
Still. If this is an act of war, and it seems our own government is saying they consider it so. Am I correct in assuming there is a congressional declaration of war, or at least a congressional authorization to use force laying around somewhere? Or do we just get the country into war secretly and without any congressional review nowadays?

Sounds impeachable...

It's all good.. the CIA can do whatever it wants under national security.. no Congress approval needed... Panetta said so. The CIA and our military are one. Theyll inform Congress on a need to know basis... like hey, we need more funding Congress... ram this bill though.

Obama didn't order shit... this whole charade is smoke and mirrors..

pcosmar
06-01-2012, 11:48 AM
Remember?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9bP4Ic-l1o&feature=related

pcosmar
06-02-2012, 09:52 AM
Cyber missiles mean war without bloodshed
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-cyber-warfare-20120601,0,2631887.story


"You're seeing an evolution of warfare that's really intriguing," said Phil Lieberman, a security consultant and chief executive of Lieberman Software in Los Angeles. "Warfare where no one is dying."

Cyber warfare, while the subject of thrilling movies and espionage novels, isn't quite revolutionary.

"The ability to inhibit [an enemy's] infrastructure has been part of warfare since the dawn of electronic communication," Lieberman said.

Cyber missiles are evolving and becoming more sophisticated, targeted and devastatingly effective. And, when done properly and under the radar, you get "outcome without attribution," he said. "That's the beauty of it."

donnay
06-02-2012, 10:05 AM
Obama?? I remember that shit out of Bush's mouth.

And several Republican presidential contenders bragging about it in the debates.

Does no one listen?? or remember?

I remember!

Obama continued, accelerated use of Bush-era Stuxnet computer attacks on Iran

Since taking office, President Obama has ordered attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, expanding the United States' use of cyber weapons, according to the New York Times.

Participants in the Stuxnet program told the newspaper it significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyber weapons and that the attacks began during the Bush administration under the code name Olympic Games.

The attacks continued and even accelerated after an element of the program accidentally became public in 2010 as a result of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet.

The Times story also details a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” in which Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised.

“Should we shut this thing down?” Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president’s national security team who were in the room.

However, the president decided that the cyber attacks should proceed. The attacks temporarily took out nearly 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges Iran had spinning at the time to purify uranium.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/01/obama-continued-accelerated-use-bush-era-stuxnet-computer-attacks-on-iran/#ixzz1weWNwa1h

MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2
06-02-2012, 10:13 AM
Still. If this is an act of war, and it seems our own government is saying they consider it so. Am I correct in assuming there is a congressional declaration of war, or at least a congressional authorization to use force laying around somewhere? Or do we just get the country into war secretly and without any congressional review nowadays?


I'm assuming that was rhetorical. The big stories today are Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee, Egypt's former president sentenced to life, and Jeb Bush opposes his own party's tax increases. :rolleyes:

kuckfeynes
06-02-2012, 10:17 AM
I'm going to go ahead and throw a conspiracy out there.
This leak is not a leak at all, but was purposefully released to make Obama look "tougher on terror."
Just another example of who is REALLY engaging in terror...

pcosmar
06-02-2012, 10:37 AM
I'm going to go ahead and throw a conspiracy out there.
This leak is not a leak at all, but was purposefully released to make Obama look "tougher on terror."
Just another example of who is REALLY engaging in terror...

Not a "leak".

It is simple reporting. Just as reporting on a bomb or missile strike is not a "leak".

The 'Who dun it" is a different matter. Obama is given some credit,, but it began earlier under Bush (or perhaps before that)
Which means it is BOTH parties, or more accurately, the Puppet Masters behind both parties.

kuckfeynes
06-02-2012, 10:51 AM
Not a "leak".

It is simple reporting. Just as reporting on a bomb or missile strike is not a "leak".

The 'Who dun it" is a different matter. Obama is given some credit,, but it began earlier under Bush (or perhaps before that)
Which means it is BOTH parties, or more accurately, the Puppet Masters behind both parties.

Ya no argument there, just that the first reports I read of this last night had this feigned "we don't talk about classified information" indignity.
I call BS on that. Of course we all know this has been going on since W. I just think they created the story themselves.

pcosmar
06-02-2012, 10:56 AM
Ya no argument there, just that the first reports I read of this last night had this feigned "we don't talk about classified information" indignity.
I call BS on that. Of course we all know this has been going on since W. I just think they created the story themselves.

Well Stuxnet is old news. But the new one was just identified. First by the Iranians (who were targeted) and then by several "security" firms.
That is what brought it into the news.

RonRules
06-02-2012, 12:11 PM
I remember reading about a year ago that the administration will from now retaliate to a cyber attach with physical force.

Do unto others ...

Feeding the Abscess
06-02-2012, 03:48 PM
Still. If this is an act of war, and it seems our own government is saying they consider it so. Am I correct in assuming there is a congressional declaration of war, or at least a congressional authorization to use force laying around somewhere? Or do we just get the country into war secretly and without any congressional review nowadays?

Sounds impeachable...

AUMF. Ron was right when he was warning his staff that it'd lead to this bullshit. Wish he didn't cave on that vote.

Brian4Liberty
06-18-2012, 01:30 PM
Still. If this is an act of war, and it seems our own government is saying they consider it so. Am I correct in assuming there is a congressional declaration of war, or at least a congressional authorization to use force laying around somewhere? Or do we just get the country into war secretly and without any congressional review nowadays?

Sounds impeachable...

Nothing to see here. Move along.


The White House and Pentagon Deem Cyber-Attacks "An Act of War"

Last weeks New York Times bombshell article by David Sanger*claimed that*President Obama secretly ordered the cyber-attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities. The story tells of a significantly expanding*American*involvement in the sustained use of *so called cyber-weapons against other nations using the “Stuxnet“*software.*The story has caused quite the uproar. But what was missing from the story is something far more interesting, according to both The White House and Pentagon’s own definitions, a cyber-attack is to be considered “An act of war.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/

jbauer
06-18-2012, 01:34 PM
To be paid what? We're broke


Sounds to me like anybody that suffered financial damage due to it have a case.

CaptainAmerica
06-18-2012, 01:40 PM
Sanctions being enforced. For all you people who think sanctions aren't a big deal, think again. Sounds like an invasion of some sort is going to happen, maybe just small teams of "special forces" aka obedient assassins will be deployed in Iran.

Brian4Liberty
06-18-2012, 02:09 PM
Cyberwar Is War, White House Said—but NYT Didn't Notice (http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/06/01/cyberwar-is-war-white-house-said-but-nyt-didnt-notice/)


For the second time this week, the New York Times has published a revealing report on a secret, legally questionable Obama administration program, but failed to include independent legal analysis of the controversial program.

Tuesday's Times report on the White House's drone assassination program included no critical analysis of the thorny legal issues raised by the program. Surely independent legal experts would have something to say about the* program at large, but particularly about such details as the White House's bizarre definition* that counts any military-aged male found in the vicinity of a bombing target as a combatant, and thus killable; or its insistence that secret White House discussions of potential assassination targets qualify as "due process" under the Fifth Amendment.

thoughtomator
06-18-2012, 02:12 PM
If true, add to the list of impeachable offenses and unauthorized acts of war by the executive.

angelatc
06-18-2012, 02:43 PM
If true, add to the list of impeachable offenses and unauthorized acts of war by the executive.

It's only impeachable if the other party doesn't want to do it too. For example, the Republicans did not want to have sex with Monica Lewinsky, so lying about that was impeachable.

Brian4Liberty
06-23-2012, 12:34 PM
The latest developments on warfare using this cyber weapon. It has been used against Oil companies now too:

The US and Israel jointly developed a computer virus nicknamed Flame (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?381489-The-US-and-Israel-jointly-developed-a-computer-virus-nicknamed-Flame)

KingRobbStark
06-23-2012, 01:29 PM
Thats bullshit. They are just trying to save face. We all know Israel makes all the calls.

BlackTerrel
06-23-2012, 04:41 PM
Since when is everything the MSM says credible?

If the NYT said Iran engaged in a cyber war against us, would it be so blankly accepted as fact or would 90% be saying "false flag".

Very selective in what we choose to accept.

pcosmar
06-23-2012, 07:45 PM
Since when is everything the MSM says credible?

If the NYT said Iran engaged in a cyber war against us, would it be so blankly accepted as fact or would 90% be saying "false flag".

Very selective in what we choose to accept.

I didn't read it in the MSM first,, in fact they got the story late and are attempting to spin it.
I read it first on Computer Security Tech sites.
It was covered by several before the MSM even mentioned it.

Brian4Liberty
06-24-2012, 01:30 PM
Since when is everything the MSM says credible?

If the NYT said Iran engaged in a cyber war against us, would it be so blankly accepted as fact or would 90% be saying "false flag".

Very selective in what we choose to accept.

Most people were willing to believe that Iran did something to take down a US spy drone.

PierzStyx
06-24-2012, 02:03 PM
Obama?? I remember that shit out of Bush's mouth.

And several Republican presidential contenders bragging about it in the debates.

Does no one listen?? or remember?

Go read teh OP again. It specifically says "Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks - begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games...."

timosman
06-29-2016, 11:47 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLG1a7dsQ_Q

Ronin Truth
06-30-2016, 10:12 AM
FWIW, if true, it seems like a blatant sneak attack acts of war to me.
Didn't the US eventually nuke Japan and kick their butt for stuff like that, a while back?

jllundqu
06-30-2016, 10:33 AM
Holy Thread Resurrection, Batman!!

timosman
06-30-2016, 10:40 AM
Holy Thread Resurrection, Batman!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKVmpJaMffM

timosman
04-26-2019, 11:40 AM
https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/stuxnet-family-tree-grows/d/d-id/1334511


4/23/2019

What a newly discovered missing link to Stuxnet and the now-revived Flame cyber espionage malware add to the narrative of the epic cyber-physical attack.
Three years after the 2010 discovery of the Stuxnet attack that sabotaged a uranium enrichment process at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, researchers at Symantec found what they surmised was a precursor to the known payload that caused the plant's centrifuges to spin out of control and fail. This early version of Stuxnet, which they called Stuxnet .5, targeted the Siemens PLC control systems that operate the valves that feed uranium hexafluoride gas into uranium enrichment centrifuges. Stuxnet .5 could close the valves and halt the release of depleted and enriched uranium gases, damaging the equipment and the manufacturing process.

The discovery led Symantec's researchers to revise their time frame of the Stuxnet attack to 2005, two years earlier than the known 2007 to 2009 attacks on the Natanz centrifuges, which were believed to be launched by the US and Israel to derail the possible development of nuclear weapons in Iran.

Flash forward to now, six years after the 2013 Stuxnet .5 finding, and there's yet another twist to the Stuxnet story. Researchers from Alphabet's cybersecurity company Chronicle earlier this month revealed that they have found evidence that a fourth cyber espionage group possibly assisted in Stuxnet's attack campaign on the Natanz nuclear facility.

Chronicle's Juan Andres Guerrero Saade and Silas Cutler uncovered a link between an older Stuxnet command-and-control component and an older cyber espionage platform called Flowershop - active as far back as 2002 and first discovered by Kaspersky Lab in 2015.

"What we realized was that this was essentially the early command-and-control module for Stuxnet - the older version of Stuxnet," Stuxnet. 5, Guerrero Saade says.

Dubbed Stuxshop by Chronicle, the module communicates with known Stuxnet C2 servers and can eliminate dial-up prompts for machines that aren't connected to the network. Stuxshop provides yet another clue to Stuxnet's creation by multiple groups, they say: It already had been tied to Flame, Duqu, and the Equation Group nation-state cyber espionage families. Like the intel-gathering Flowershop code, Stuxshop's features include checking an infected machine's Windows version, Internet proxy settings, and registry key information.

"Stuxnet was the result of a collaborated framework with a bunch of different groups. It was a hodgepodge of plug-ins," Guerrero Saade says.

The researchers say it appears some Flowershop code was used in the Stuxnet module, which could indicate that two attack development teams were working together or sharing code.

"Flowershop was its own intel-gathering platform, a whole different threat actor active for a decade. No one had been able to connect it to Stuxnet until we identified Stuxshop," Guerrero Saade says. Stuxshop shares code from Flowershop, but it was specifically developed for the Stuxnet attack, he says.

The Chronicle researchers first disclosed their research at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit this month in Singapore.

Symantec's Liam O'Murchu, one of the first researchers to study Stuxnet, says he hasn't yet fully analyzed the Stuxshop files, but from his first read, it appears to fit the timeline of his company's discovery of Stuxnet .5.

While O'Murchu and other Stuxnet experts say Chronicle's new findings don't dramatically alter the Stuxnet story, they do provide more confirmation of the timeline of the attack campaign. "To separately confirm the timeline is very good," O'Murchu says.

It provides more evidence of Symantec's longtime working theory that the Stuxnet operation dates back as far back as 2002.

"Stuxshop's timeline fits in with what we had assumed the development timeline would be. We were looking specifically at the destructive part of Stuxnet, so that's what we had," says O'Murchu, who is director of development for the security technology and response team at Symantec. "We had assumed ... there was a previous version actually gathering information."

Costin Raiu, one of the lead researchers from Kaspersky Lab who hunted down Stuxnet, notes that Chronicle's findings follow the threads of previous research, including his firm's connecting Flowershop to Stuxnet in private reports to its clients in 2014. With the explosion in more advanced research tools, like the Yara malware investigation tool, and Chronicle's access to its VirusTotal platform, researchers are now able to better fill in the gaps of information on advanced attacks like Stuxnet, he says.

"Chronicle truly has a unique advantage here because they have excellent sources of data: VirusTotal," Raiu says.

Stuxshop and Stuxnet .5 were eventually replaced with Stuxnet 1.10 and its command-and-control infrastructure. Stuxnet 1.10 attacked Siemens PLC equipment that ran the Natanz plant's centrifuges.

Rekindled Flame
Meantime, Guerrero Saade and Cutler recently found a surprise in their VirusTotal repository: a reincarnated version of the Flame cyber espionage platform, which was last seen in 2012 when it self-destructed. They christened the new variant Flame 2.0, but for now they're unable to see inside it. "The payload is encrypted so we can't really see what it's doing," Guerrero Saade says.

Flame 2.0 was apparently compiled sometime after 2014 and landed in VirusTotal in 2016. "I'll bet AV companies are aware of it and we'll find more samples of it," he says.

The researchers are hoping to get help decrypting the sample from other security firms.

Kurt Baumgartner, a security researcher with Kaspersky Lab, says decrypting the newly found Flame 2.0 won't be easy, pointing to the still-uncracked Gauss malware payload that has dogged researchers for seven years. "[Flame 2.0 is] probably not going to be cracked anytime soon," he says.

Flame's reappearance fits a profile of advanced threat groups that don't really ever die. "Sometimes we lose visibility, but we never know if they are really gone. They may have just retooled, or disappeared altogether," Symantec's O'Murchu says.

Catching Up?
The Stuxshop discovery - nine years after Stuxnet was first found by researchers - underscores how the cyberweapon was ahead of its time and ahead of threat hunting capabilities and tools available to researchers in the private sector in the early 2000s, experts say. The Stuxnet campaign and its predecessor components had been well underway by the nation-state hackers long before security researchers uncovered it in 2010.

"We really weren't cyberwar-trained until Stuxnet," Symantec's O'Murchu says of the security industry. "What we hope is that we've advanced to make it more difficult for them to do things and not be noticed. ... I would hope we'll be able to find them faster and see traces, but you never really know. We could be missing a bunch of stuff now" and then could find it years later, he says.