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A review by lamida
Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon by Kim Zetter
5.0
This is the story mainly about Stuxnet and then a little bit about Duqu and Flame. It feels so much distant but at the same time feels really close.
In the early days when we walk about malware, it is only when somebody defacing somebody's website. Later it escalates to somebody stealing your credit card detail or phishing you and drains some of your e-wallet. It felt so distant that one can use the power of malware as a cyberweapon. If you watched movies where hackers can destroy a power grid or some other industrial control system, it is a reality now. Stuxnet is proof.
Reading the book is like watching movies. The narrative is around how Stuxnet is first detected after being hidden for some time until later it involves multiple people and institutions to unfold who are spreading it and what is its goal. As the title suggests the book also shows what is actually zero-day means, for one that just starts familiarizing oneself with cybersecurity. Zero-day is unknown security bugs that can be exploited to do bad things. Anti-virus can't detect zero-day. Stuxnet use couple of zero-days to spread itself undetected.
Although it was not clear in the beginning Stuxnet main goal is to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. The malware disrupts programmable logic controllers (PLC) that control centrifuges in Uranium enrichment facilities. There is no official attribution about who is actually creating Stuxnet although the book and many expert things that the malware is made by USA and Israel.
In the early days when we walk about malware, it is only when somebody defacing somebody's website. Later it escalates to somebody stealing your credit card detail or phishing you and drains some of your e-wallet. It felt so distant that one can use the power of malware as a cyberweapon. If you watched movies where hackers can destroy a power grid or some other industrial control system, it is a reality now. Stuxnet is proof.
Reading the book is like watching movies. The narrative is around how Stuxnet is first detected after being hidden for some time until later it involves multiple people and institutions to unfold who are spreading it and what is its goal. As the title suggests the book also shows what is actually zero-day means, for one that just starts familiarizing oneself with cybersecurity. Zero-day is unknown security bugs that can be exploited to do bad things. Anti-virus can't detect zero-day. Stuxnet use couple of zero-days to spread itself undetected.
Although it was not clear in the beginning Stuxnet main goal is to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. The malware disrupts programmable logic controllers (PLC) that control centrifuges in Uranium enrichment facilities. There is no official attribution about who is actually creating Stuxnet although the book and many expert things that the malware is made by USA and Israel.