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118-660: The Station was owned and managed by the National Security Agency and staffed by the United States Army Security Agency (USASA), which later became U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), in conjunction with other branches of the U.S. Military and various allied forces. Personnel assigned to Field Station Augsburg were composed[ of individuals who scored high enough on the Army entrance exams to be classified as "ST" or

236-527: A control system security management program. The basic premise that all of these documents share is that prevention requires a multi-layered approach, often termed defense in depth . The layers include policies and procedures, awareness and training, network segmentation , access control measures, physical security measures, system hardening , e.g., patch management , and system monitoring, anti-virus and intrusion prevention system (IPS). The standards and best practices also all recommend starting with

354-712: A cyberweapon built jointly by the United States and Israel in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games . The program, started during the Bush administration , was rapidly expanded within the first months of Barack Obama 's presidency. Stuxnet specifically targets programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which allow the automation of electromechanical processes such as those used to control machinery and industrial processes including gas centrifuges for separating nuclear material. Exploiting four zero-day flaws, Stuxnet functions by targeting machines using

472-469: A distributed denial-of-service attack was made on the servers for two leading mailing lists on industrial-systems security. This attack, from an unknown source but likely related to Stuxnet, disabled one of the lists, thereby interrupting an important source of information for power plants and factories. On the other hand, researchers at Symantec have uncovered a version of the Stuxnet computer virus that

590-571: A transparent process for replacing the outdated Data Encryption Standard (DES) by an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Cybersecurity policy expert Susan Landau attributes the NSA's harmonious collaboration with industry and academia in the selection of the AES in 2000—and the Agency's support for the choice of a strong encryption algorithm designed by Europeans rather than by Americans—to Brian Snow , who

708-567: A "real-time" basis. Personnel assigned to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Operations Battalions and the Support (Service and Maintenance) Battalion, and the successor Military Intelligence (MI) units (701st Military Intelligence Brigade - 711th, 712th, 713th, & 714th MI Battalions) at Field Station Augsburg served as Morse and non-Morse Cryptologists, Voice Intercept, and Radio Direction-Finding Operators, as well as Traffic Analysts, Equipment Repair and Cryptanalysis/Cryptanalytic Technicians. A Company of

826-546: A "wake-up call" for the need to invest in the agency's infrastructure. In the 1990s the defensive arm of the NSA—the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD)—started working more openly; the first public technical talk by an NSA scientist at a major cryptography conference was J. Solinas' presentation on efficient Elliptic Curve Cryptography algorithms at Crypto 1997. The IAD's cooperative approach to academia and industry culminated in its support for

944-714: A 2010 article in The Washington Post , "every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7  billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases." Because of its listening task, NSA/CSS has been heavily involved in cryptanalytic research, continuing the work of predecessor agencies which had broken many World War II codes and ciphers (see, for instance, Purple , Venona project , and JN-25 ). In 2004, NSA Central Security Service and

1062-698: A build timestamp from 3 February 2010. In the United Kingdom on 25 November 2010, Sky News reported that it had received information from an anonymous source at an unidentified IT security organization that Stuxnet, or a variation of the worm, had been traded on the black market . In 2015, Kaspersky Lab noted that the Equation Group had used two of the same zero-day attacks prior to their use in Stuxnet, in another malware called fanny.bmp. and commented that "the similar type of usage of both exploits together in different computer worms, at around

1180-472: A discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems . The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine . The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees. Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II , it was officially formed as

1298-603: A file xkeyscorerules100.txt, sourced by German TV stations NDR and WDR , who claim to have excerpts from its source code) reveal that the NSA tracks users of privacy-enhancing software tools, including Tor ; an anonymous email service provided by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and readers of the Linux Journal . Linus Torvalds ,

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1416-433: A group of hackers known as The Shadow Brokers leaked a massive trove of tools belonging to Equation Group, including new versions of both exploits compiled in 2010, showing significant code overlaps as both Stuxnet's exploits and Equation Group's exploits were developed using a set of libraries called "Exploit Development Framework" also leaked by The Shadow Brokers. A study of the spread of Stuxnet by Symantec showed that

1534-466: A key communication library of WinCC called s7otbxdx.dll . Doing so intercepts communications between the WinCC software running under Windows and the target Siemens PLC devices, when the two are connected via a data cable. The malware is able to modify the code on PLC devices unnoticed, and subsequently to mask its presence from WinCC if the control software attempts to read an infected block of memory from

1652-541: A major effort to secure tactical communications among U.S. forces during the war with mixed success. The NESTOR family of compatible secure voice systems it developed was widely deployed during the Vietnam War , with about 30,000 NESTOR sets produced. However, a variety of technical and operational problems limited their use, allowing the North Vietnamese to exploit and intercept U.S. communications. In

1770-482: A matter of political controversy on several occasions, including its spying on anti–Vietnam War leaders and the agency's participation in economic espionage . In 2013, the NSA had many of its secret surveillance programs revealed to the public by Edward Snowden , a former NSA contractor. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts and stores the communications of over a billion people worldwide, including United States citizens. The documents also revealed that

1888-592: A memorial at the National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, Maryland. The memorial is a, "tribute to the pioneers and heroes who have made significant and long-lasting contributions to American cryptology". NSA employees must be retired for more than fifteen years to qualify for the memorial. NSA's infrastructure deteriorated in the 1990s as defense budget cuts resulted in maintenance deferrals. On January 24, 2000, NSA headquarters suffered

2006-545: A quantum physicist, was killed. Fereydoon Abbasi , a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Defense was seriously wounded. Wired speculated that the assassinations could indicate that whoever was behind Stuxnet felt that it was not sufficient to stop the nuclear program. That same Wired article suggested the Iranian government could have been behind the assassinations. In January 2010, another Iranian nuclear scientist,

2124-523: A report published in December 2010, that Stuxnet is a reasonable explanation for the apparent damage at Natanz, and may have destroyed up to 1,000 centrifuges (10 percent) sometime between November 2009 and late January 2010. The authors conclude: The attacks seem designed to force a change in the centrifuge’s rotor speed, first raising the speed and then lowering it, likely with the intention of inducing excessive vibrations or distortions that would destroy

2242-477: A result of the boomerang routing of Canadian Internet service providers . A document included in NSA files released with Glenn Greenwald 's book No Place to Hide details how the agency's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) and other NSA units gain access to hardware. They intercept routers , servers , and other network hardware being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they are delivered. This

2360-474: A risk analysis and a control system security assessment. Experts believe that Stuxnet required the largest and costliest development effort in malware history. Developing its many abilities would have required a team of highly capable programmers, in-depth knowledge of industrial processes , and an interest in attacking industrial infrastructure. Eric Byres, who has years of experience maintaining and troubleshooting Siemens systems, told Wired that writing

2478-457: A secret filing system that was destroyed in 1974. Following the resignation of President Richard Nixon , there were several investigations into suspected misuse of FBI, CIA and NSA facilities. Senator Frank Church uncovered previously unknown activity, such as a CIA plot (ordered by the administration of President John F. Kennedy ) to assassinate Fidel Castro . The investigation also uncovered NSA's wiretaps on targeted U.S. citizens. After

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2596-739: A showreel that was played at a retirement party for the head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Gabi Ashkenazi , included references to Stuxnet as one of his operational successes as the IDF chief of staff. On 1 June 2012, an article in The New York Times reported that Stuxnet was part of a US and Israeli intelligence operation named Operation Olympic Games , devised by the NSA under President George W. Bush and executed under President Barack Obama . On 24 July 2012, an article by Chris Matyszczyk from CNET reported that

2714-447: A skilled technician, which is the Army's top-ranked job category. The Station was staffed 24 hours a day, by means of rotating shifts. The Station's mission was to monitor the communications of Cold War enemy nations, their allies, and client states around the world. The information gathered was time-sensitive and, based on its importance and classification, that information was collected, analyzed and passed through intelligence channels on

2832-403: A total network outage for three days caused by an overloaded network. Incoming traffic was successfully stored on agency servers, but it could not be directed and processed. The agency carried out emergency repairs for $ 3  million to get the system running again. (Some incoming traffic was also directed instead to Britain's GCHQ for the time being.) Director Michael Hayden called the outage

2950-417: Is a malicious computer worm first uncovered in 2010 and thought to have been in development since at least 2005. Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition ( SCADA ) systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to the nuclear program of Iran . Although neither country has openly admitted responsibility, multiple independent news organizations recognize Stuxnet to be

3068-669: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Bavaria location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . National Security Agency The National Security Agency ( NSA ) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense , under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in

3186-491: Is a cooperative umbrella that includes the Equation Group , Flame , Duqu , and Flowershop (also known as 'Cheshire Cat'). In 2020, researcher Facundo Muñoz found evidence suggesting that Equation Group collaborated with Stuxnet developers in 2009 by lending them at least one zero-day exploit, and one exploit from 2008 that was being actively used in-the-wild by the Conficker computer worm and Chinese hackers. In 2017,

3304-630: Is also alleged to have been behind such attack software as Stuxnet , which severely damaged Iran's nuclear program . The NSA, alongside the CIA, maintains a physical presence in many countries across the globe; the CIA/NSA joint Special Collection Service (a highly classified intelligence team) inserts eavesdropping devices in high-value targets (such as presidential palaces or embassies). SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, [and] breaking and entering". Unlike

3422-937: Is believed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian to be the model for the comprehensive worldwide mass archiving of communications which NSA is engaged in as of 2013. A dedicated unit of the NSA locates targets for the CIA for extrajudicial assassination in the Middle East. The NSA has also spied extensively on the European Union, the United Nations, and numerous governments including allies and trading partners in Europe, South America, and Asia. In June 2015, WikiLeaks published documents showing that NSA spied on French companies. WikiLeaks also published documents showing that NSA spied on federal German ministries since

3540-655: Is designed to target only Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes. Stuxnet infects PLCs by subverting the Step-7 software application that is used to reprogram these devices. Different variants of Stuxnet targeted five Iranian organizations, with the probable target widely suspected to be uranium enrichment infrastructure in Iran ; Symantec noted in August 2010 that 60 percent of

3658-477: Is detected and advises installing Microsoft updates for security vulnerabilities and prohibiting the use of third-party USB flash drives . Siemens also advises immediately upgrading password access codes. The worm's ability to reprogram external PLCs may complicate the removal procedure. Symantec's Liam O'Murchu warns that fixing Windows systems may not fully solve the infection; a thorough audit of PLCs may be necessary. Despite speculation that incorrect removal of

USASA Field Station Augsburg - Misplaced Pages Continue

3776-416: Is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems, nor the first publicly known intentional act of cyberwarfare to be implemented, it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit . The worm initially spreads indiscriminately, but includes a highly specialized malware payload that

3894-590: Is still ongoing and new versions of this virus are spreading." He reported that his company had begun the cleanup process at Iran's "sensitive centres and organizations." "We had anticipated that we could root out the virus within one to two months, but the virus is not stable, and since we started the cleanup process three new versions of it have been spreading", he told the Islamic Republic News Agency on 27 September 2010. On 29 November 2010, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated for

4012-727: Is very unusual for malware . The worm consists of a layered attack against three different systems: Stuxnet attacked Windows systems using an unprecedented four zero-day attacks (plus the CPLINK vulnerability and a vulnerability used by the Conficker worm ). It is initially spread using infected removable drives such as USB flash drives , which contain Windows shortcut files to initiate executable code. The worm then uses other exploits and techniques such as peer-to-peer remote procedure call (RPC) to infect and update other computers inside private networks that are not directly connected to

4130-572: Is viewed in Windows Explorer, negating the need for user interaction. Stuxnet is unusually large at half a megabyte in size, and written in several different programming languages (including C and C++ ) which is also irregular for malware. The Windows component of the malware is promiscuous in that it spreads relatively quickly and indiscriminately. The malware has both user mode and kernel mode rootkit ability under Windows, and its device drivers have been digitally signed with

4248-667: The 204th Military Intelligence Battalion was assigned to nearby Augsburg in 1991 until U.S. operations at the station ultimately ceased in 1998. With the end of the Cold War, Field Station Augsburg lost much of its strategic value. It is currently reputedly used by the Bundesnachrichtendienst . The Wullenweber / Flair-9 antenna is still in place as of March 2022. 48°27′5″N 10°51′43″E  /  48.45139°N 10.86194°E  / 48.45139; 10.86194 This United States military history article

4366-584: The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran e-mailed F-Secure 's chief research officer Mikko Hyppönen to report a new instance of malware. On 25 December 2012, an Iranian semi-official news agency announced there was a cyberattack by Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the southern area of the country. The malware targeted a power plant and some other industries in Hormozgan province in recent months. According to Eugene Kaspersky ,

4484-512: The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran met in the previous week to discuss how Stuxnet could be removed from their systems. According to analysts, such as David Albright , Western intelligence agencies had been attempting to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program for some time. The head of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant told Reuters that only the personal computers of staff at the plant had been infected by Stuxnet and

4602-858: The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant or the Natanz nuclear facility . Langner called the malware "a one-shot weapon" and said that the intended target was probably hit, although he admitted this was speculation. Another German researcher and spokesman of the German-based Chaos Computer Club , Frank Rieger, was the first to speculate that Natanz was the target. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz , in September 2010 experts on Iran and computer security specialists were increasingly convinced that Stuxnet

4720-698: The Department of State , the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In December 1951, President Harry S. Truman ordered a panel to investigate how AFSA had failed to achieve its goals. The results of the investigation led to improvements and its redesignation as the National Security Agency. The National Security Council issued a memorandum of October 24, 1952, that revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9 . On

4838-715: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when within U.S. borders. Alleged Echelon-related activities, including its use for motives other than national security, including political and industrial espionage , received criticism from countries outside the UKUSA alliance. The NSA was also involved in planning to blackmail people with " SEXINT ", intelligence gained about a potential target's sexual activity and preferences. Those targeted had not committed any apparent crime nor were they charged with one. To support its facial recognition program,

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4956-591: The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) worked with Siemens to identify security holes in the company's widely used Process Control System 7 (PCS 7) and its software Step 7. In July 2008, INL and Siemens publicly announced flaws in the control system at a Chicago conference; Stuxnet exploited these holes in 2009. Several industry organizations and professional societies have published standards and best practice guidelines providing direction and guidance for control system end-users on how to establish

5074-556: The Microsoft Windows operating system and networks, then seeking out Siemens Step7 software. Stuxnet reportedly compromised Iranian PLCs, collecting information on industrial systems and causing the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart. Stuxnet's design and architecture are not domain-specific and it could be tailored as a platform for attacking modern SCADA and PLC systems (e.g., in factory assembly lines or power plants), most of which are in Europe, Japan , and

5192-753: The National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agreed to expand the NSA Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education Program. As part of the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54), signed on January 8, 2008, by President Bush, the NSA became the lead agency to monitor and protect all of

5310-655: The U.S. Army cryptographic section of military intelligence known as MI-8, the U.S. government created the Cipher Bureau, also known as Black Chamber , in 1919. The Black Chamber was the United States' first peacetime cryptanalytic organization. Jointly funded by the Army and the State Department, the Cipher Bureau was disguised as a New York City commercial code company; it produced and sold such codes for business use. Its true mission, however,

5428-639: The US Court of Appeals . The court also added that the US intelligence leaders, who publicly defended it, were not telling the truth. NSA's eavesdropping mission includes radio broadcasting, both from various organizations and individuals, the Internet, telephone calls, and other intercepted forms of communication. Its secure communications mission includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive, confidential, or secret government communications. According to

5546-486: The 1990s. Even Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel 's cellphones and phones of her predecessors had been intercepted. Edward Snowden revealed in June 2013 that between February 8 and March 8, 2013, the NSA collected about 124.8  billion telephone data items and 97.1  billion computer data items throughout the world, as was displayed in charts from an internal NSA tool codenamed Boundless Informant . Initially, it

5664-604: The Black Chamber access to cable traffic of foreign embassies and consulates. Soon, these companies publicly discontinued their collaboration. Despite the Chamber's initial successes, it was shut down in 1929 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson , who defended his decision by stating, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." During World War II , the Signal Intelligence Service (SIS)

5782-495: The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage , the NSA does not publicly conduct human intelligence gathering . The NSA is entrusted with assisting with and coordinating, SIGINT elements for other government organizations—which are prevented by Executive Order from engaging in such activities on their own. As part of these responsibilities,

5900-689: The Church Committee hearings, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was passed. This was designed to limit the practice of mass surveillance in the United States . In 1986, the NSA intercepted the communications of the Libyan government during the immediate aftermath of the Berlin discotheque bombing . The White House asserted that the NSA interception had provided "irrefutable" evidence that Libya

6018-640: The Control System Security Program (CSSP). The program operates a specialized computer emergency response team called the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), conducts a biannual conference ( ICSJWG ), provides training, publishes recommended practices, and provides a self-assessment tool. As part of a Department of Homeland Security plan to improve American computer security, in 2008 it and

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6136-469: The Internet. The number of zero-day exploits used is unusual, as they are highly valued and malware creators do not typically make use of (and thus simultaneously make visible) four different zero-day exploits in the same worm. Amongst these exploits were remote code execution on a computer with Printer Sharing enabled, and the LNK/PIF vulnerability, in which file execution is accomplished when an icon

6254-495: The NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Between then and the end of the Cold War, it became the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget, but information available as of 2013 indicates that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pulled ahead in this regard, with a budget of $ 14.7 billion. The NSA currently conducts worldwide mass data collection and has been known to physically bug electronic systems as one method to this end. The NSA

6372-590: The NSA is intercepting "millions of images per day". The Real Time Regional Gateway is a data collection program introduced in 2005 in Iraq by the NSA during the Iraq War that consisted of gathering all electronic communication, storing it, then searching and otherwise analyzing it. It was effective in providing information about Iraqi insurgents who had eluded less comprehensive techniques. This "collect it all" strategy introduced by NSA director, Keith B. Alexander ,

6490-447: The NSA that allowed the export of a version that supported stronger keys with 64 bits, but 24 of the bits were encrypted with a special key and included in the message to provide a "workload reduction factor" for the NSA. This strengthened the protection for users of Notes outside the US against private-sector industrial espionage , but not against spying by the US government. While it is assumed that foreign transmissions terminating in

6608-498: The NSA tracks hundreds of millions of people's movements using cell phones metadata . Internationally, research has pointed to the NSA's ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries through " boomerang routing ". The origins of the National Security Agency can be traced back to April 28, 1917, three weeks after the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany in World War I . A code and cipher decryption unit

6726-498: The NSA was a trusted partner with academia and industry in the development of cryptographic standards started to come to an end when, as part of the change in the NSA in the post-September 11 era, Snow was replaced as Technical Director, Jacobs retired, and IAD could no longer effectively oppose proposed actions by the offensive arm of the NSA. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks , the NSA created new IT systems to deal with

6844-531: The NSA was not known to the public at that time. Due to its ultra-secrecy, the U.S. intelligence community referred to the NSA as "No Such Agency". In the 1960s, the NSA played a key role in expanding U.S. commitment to the Vietnam War by providing evidence of a North Vietnamese attack on the American destroyer USS  Maddox during the Gulf of Tonkin incident . A secret operation, code-named " MINARET ",

6962-567: The NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog, after implanting Cottonmouth, the NSA can establish a network bridge "that allows the NSA to load exploit software onto modified computers as well as allowing the NSA to relay commands and data between hardware and software implants." NSA's mission, as outlined in Executive Order 12333 in 1981, is to collect information that constitutes "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence" while not "acquiring information concerning

7080-602: The Natanz plant. Iran likely cleaned the malware from its control systems. To prevent re-infection, Iran will have to exercise special caution since so many computers in Iran contain Stuxnet. Although Stuxnet appears to be designed to destroy centrifuges at the Natanz facility, destruction was by no means total. Moreover, Stuxnet did not lower the production of low enriched uranium (LEU) during 2010. LEU quantities could have certainly been greater, and Stuxnet could be an important part of

7198-580: The PBS program Need To Know cited a statement by Gary Samore , White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, in which he said, "we're glad they [the Iranians] are having trouble with their centrifuge machine and that we — the U.S. and its allies — are doing everything we can to make sure that we complicate matters for them," offering "winking acknowledgement" of United States involvement in Stuxnet. According to The Daily Telegraph ,

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7316-778: The PLC system. The malware furthermore used a zero-day exploit in the WinCC/SCADA database software in the form of a hard-coded database password. Stuxnet's payload targets only those SCADA configurations that meet criteria that it is programmed to identify. Stuxnet requires specific slave variable-frequency drives (frequency converter drives) to be attached to the targeted Siemens S7-300 system and its associated modules. It only attacks those PLC systems with variable-frequency drives from two specific vendors: Vacon based in Finland and Fararo Paya based in Iran. Furthermore, it monitors

7434-539: The U.S. (such as a non-U.S. citizen accessing a U.S. website) subject non-U.S. citizens to NSA surveillance, recent research into boomerang routing has raised new concerns about the NSA's ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries. Boomerang routing occurs when an Internet transmission that originates and terminates in a single country transits another. Research at the University of Toronto has suggested that approximately 25% of Canadian domestic traffic may be subject to NSA surveillance activities as

7552-431: The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the International Organization for Standardization (aka ISO). This memo appears to give credence to previous speculation by cryptographers at Microsoft Research . Edward Snowden claims that the NSA often bypasses encryption altogether by lifting information before it is encrypted or after it is decrypted. XKeyscore rules (as specified in

7670-403: The United States. Stuxnet reportedly destroyed almost one-fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges . Targeting industrial control systems, the worm infected over 200,000 computers and caused 1,000 machines to physically degrade. Stuxnet has three modules: a worm that executes all routines related to the main payload of the attack; a link file that automatically executes the propagated copies of

7788-460: The abilities to produce it. The self-destruct and other safeguards within the code implied that a Western government was responsible, or at least is responsible for its development. However, software security expert Bruce Schneier initially condemned the 2010 news coverage of Stuxnet as hype, stating that it was almost entirely based on speculation. But after subsequent research, Schneier stated in 2012 that "we can now conclusively link Stuxnet to

7906-447: The ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax, and data traffic. During the early 1970s, the first of what became more than eight large satellite communications dishes were installed at Menwith Hill. Investigative journalist Duncan Campbell reported in 1988 on the " ECHELON " surveillance program, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence SIGINT , and detailed how

8024-418: The aftermath of the Watergate scandal , a congressional hearing in 1975 led by Senator Frank Church revealed that the NSA, in collaboration with Britain's SIGINT intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti-Vietnam war leaders such as Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock . The NSA tracked these individuals in

8142-453: The agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which facilitates cooperation between the NSA and other U.S. defense cryptanalysis components. To further ensure streamlined communication between the signals intelligence community divisions, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service. The NSA's actions have been

8260-426: The breakdown by installing new centrifuges on a large scale. The worm worked by first causing an infected Iranian IR-1 centrifuge to increase from its normal operating speed of 1,064 hertz to 1,410 hertz for 15 minutes before returning to its normal frequency. Twenty-seven days later, the worm went back into action, slowing the infected centrifuges down to a few hundred hertz for a full 50 minutes. The stresses from

8378-418: The centrifuge structure at the Natanz nuclear enrichment lab in Iran". In January 2024, de Volkskrant reported that Dutch engineer Erik van Sabben was the saboteur who had infiltrated the underground nuclear complex in the city of Natanz and installed equipment infected with Stuxnet. Ralph Langner, the researcher who identified that Stuxnet infected PLCs, first speculated publicly in September 2010 that

8496-505: The centrifuge. If its goal was to quickly destroy all the centrifuges in the FEP [Fuel Enrichment Plant], Stuxnet failed. But if the goal was to destroy a more limited number of centrifuges and set back Iran’s progress in operating the FEP, while making detection difficult, it may have succeeded, at least temporarily. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) report further notes that Iranian authorities have attempted to conceal

8614-449: The code would have taken many man-months, if not man-years. Symantec estimates that the group developing Stuxnet would have consisted of between five and thirty people, and would have taken six months to prepare. The Guardian , the BBC and The New York Times all claimed that (unnamed) experts studying Stuxnet believe the complexity of the code indicates that only a nation-state would have

8732-455: The computer. If both the conditions are fulfilled, Stuxnet introduces the infected rootkit onto the PLC and Step7 software, modifying the code and giving unexpected commands to the PLC while returning a loop of normal operation system values back to the users. Stuxnet, discovered by Sergey Ulasen from a Belarussian antivirus company VirusBlokAda , initially spread via Microsoft Windows, and targeted Siemens industrial control systems . While it

8850-487: The domestic activities of United States persons ". NSA has declared that it relies on the FBI to collect information on foreign intelligence activities within the borders of the United States while confining its activities within the United States to the embassies and missions of foreign nations. The appearance of a 'Domestic Surveillance Directorate' of the NSA was soon exposed as a hoax in 2013. Stuxnet Stuxnet

8968-489: The eavesdropping operations worked. On November 3, 1999, the BBC reported that they had confirmation from the Australian Government of the existence of a powerful "global spying network" code-named Echelon, that could "eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet" with Britain and the United States as the chief protagonists. They confirmed that Menwith Hill was "linked directly to

9086-463: The equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom ( Government Communications Headquarters ), Canada ( Communications Security Establishment ), Australia ( Australian Signals Directorate ), and New Zealand ( Government Communications Security Bureau ), otherwise known as the UKUSA group, was reported to be in command of the operation of the so-called ECHELON system. Its capabilities were suspected to include

9204-403: The excessive, then slower, speeds caused the aluminium centrifugal tubes to expand, often forcing parts of the centrifuges into sufficient contact with each other to destroy the machine. According to The Washington Post , International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cameras installed in the Natanz facility recorded the sudden dismantling and removal of approximately 900–1,000 centrifuges during

9322-524: The federal government's computer networks from cyber-terrorism . A part of the NSA's mission is to serve as a combat support agency for the Department of Defense. Operations by the National Security Agency can be divided into three types: "Echelon" was created in the incubator of the Cold War . Today it is a legacy system , and several NSA stations are closing. NSA/CSS, in combination with

9440-571: The first time that a computer virus had caused problems with the controller handling the centrifuges at its Natanz facilities. According to Reuters, he told reporters at a news conference in Tehran, "They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts." On the same day two Iranian nuclear scientists were targeted in separate, but nearly simultaneous car bomb attacks near Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. Majid Shahriari ,

9558-504: The flood of information from new technologies like the Internet and cell phones. ThinThread contained advanced data mining capabilities. It also had a "privacy mechanism"; surveillance was stored encrypted; decryption required a warrant. The research done under this program may have contributed to the technology used in later systems. ThinThread was canceled when Michael Hayden chose Trailblazer , which did not include ThinThread's privacy system. Trailblazer Project ramped up in 2002 and

9676-481: The founder of Linux kernel , joked during a LinuxCon keynote on September 18, 2013, that the NSA, who is the founder of SELinux , wanted a backdoor in the kernel. However, later, Linus' father, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), revealed that the NSA actually did this. When my oldest son was asked the same question: "Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?" he said "No", but at

9794-491: The frequency of the attached motors, and only attacks systems that spin between 807  Hz and 1,210 Hz. This is a much higher frequency than motors typically operate at in most industrial applications, with the notable exception of gas centrifuges . Stuxnet installs malware into memory block DB890 of the PLC that monitors the Profibus messaging bus of the system. When certain criteria are met, it periodically modifies

9912-482: The frequency to 1,410 Hz and then to 2 Hz and then to 1,064 Hz, and thus affects the operation of the connected motors by changing their rotational speed. It also installs a rootkit – the first such documented case on this platform – that hides the malware on the system and masks the changes in rotational speed from monitoring systems. Siemens has released a detection and removal tool for Stuxnet. Siemens recommends contacting customer support if an infection

10030-635: The headquarters of the US National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland". NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibited the interception or collection of information about "... U.S. persons , entities, corporations or organizations...." without explicit written legal permission from the United States Attorney General when the subject is located abroad, or

10148-518: The infected computers worldwide were in Iran. Siemens stated that the worm caused no damage to its customers, but the Iran nuclear program, which uses embargoed Siemens equipment procured secretly, was damaged by Stuxnet. Kaspersky Lab concluded that the sophisticated attack could only have been conducted "with nation-state support." F-Secure 's chief researcher Mikko Hyppönen , when asked if possible nation-state support were involved, agreed: "That's what it would look like, yes." In May 2011,

10266-636: The infection, Iran assembled a team to combat it. With more than 30,000 IP addresses affected in Iran, an official said that the infection was fast spreading in Iran and the problem had been compounded by the ability of Stuxnet to mutate. Iran had set up its own systems to clean up infections and had advised against using the Siemens SCADA antivirus since it is suspected that the antivirus contains embedded code which updates Stuxnet instead of removing it. According to Hamid Alipour, deputy head of Iran's government Information Technology Company, "The attack

10384-578: The main affected countries in the early days of the infection were Iran, Indonesia and India: Iran was reported to have fortified its cyberwar abilities following the Stuxnet attack, and has been suspected of retaliatory attacks against United States banks in Operation Ababil . Unlike most malware, Stuxnet does little harm to computers and networks that do not meet specific configuration requirements; "The attackers took great care to make sure that only their designated targets were hit ... It

10502-792: The malware was of Israeli origin, and that it targeted Iranian nuclear facilities. However Langner more recently, at a TED conference, recorded in February 2011, stated that, "My opinion is that the Mossad is involved, but that the leading force is not Israel. The leading force behind Stuxnet is the cyber superpower – there is only one; and that's the United States." Kevin Hogan, Senior Director of Security Response at Symantec, reported that most infected systems were in Iran (about 60%), which has led to speculation that it may have been deliberately targeting "high-value infrastructure" in Iran including either

10620-472: The malware, allowing it to be updated, and for industrial espionage to be conducted by uploading information. Both of these domain names have subsequently been redirected by their DNS service provider to Dynadot as part of a global effort to disable the malware. According to researcher Ralph Langner, once installed on a Windows system, Stuxnet infects project files belonging to Siemens' WinCC / PCS 7 SCADA control software (Step 7), and subverts

10738-627: The private keys of two public key certificates that were stolen from separate well-known companies, JMicron and Realtek , both located at Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan. The driver signing helped it install kernel mode rootkit drivers successfully without users being notified, and thus it remained undetected for a relatively long period of time. Both compromised certificates have been revoked by Verisign . Two websites in Denmark and Malaysia were configured as command and control servers for

10856-414: The reason why they did not increase significantly. Nonetheless, there remain important questions about why Stuxnet destroyed only 1,000 centrifuges. One observation is that it may be harder to destroy centrifuges by use of cyber attacks than often believed. The Associated Press reported that the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency released a statement on 24 September 2010 stating that experts from

10974-513: The same day, Truman issued a second memorandum that called for the establishment of the NSA. The actual establishment of the NSA was done by a November 4 memo by Robert A. Lovett , the Secretary of Defense , changing the name of the AFSA to the NSA, and making the new agency responsible for all communications intelligence. Since President Truman's memo was a classified document, the existence of

11092-556: The same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer, everybody understood that the NSA had approached him. IBM Notes was the first widely adopted software product to use public key cryptography for client-server and server–server authentication and encryption of data. Until US laws regulating encryption were changed in 2000, IBM and Lotus were prohibited from exporting versions of Notes that supported symmetric encryption keys that were longer than 40 bits. In 1997, Lotus negotiated an agreement with

11210-540: The same time, indicates that the Equation Group and the Stuxnet developers are either the same or working closely together". In 2019, Chronicle researchers Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade and Silas Cutler presented evidence of at least four distinct threat actor malware platforms collaborating to create the different versions of Stuxnet. The collaboration was dubbed 'GOSSIP GIRL' after a threat group leaked from classified CSE slides that included Flame. GOSSIP GIRL

11328-581: The site in the first half of 2009, which is speculated to have forced Gholam Reza Aghazadeh , the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), to resign. Statistics published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) show that the number of enrichment centrifuges operational in Iran mysteriously declined from about 4,700 to about 3,900 beginning around the time the nuclear incident WikiLeaks mentioned would have occurred. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) suggests, in

11446-562: The state-run newspaper Iran Daily quoted Reza Taghipour , Iran's telecommunications minister, as saying that it had not caused "serious damage to government systems". The Director of Information Technology Council at the Iranian Ministry of Industries and Mines, Mahmud Liaii, has said that: "An electronic war has been launched against Iran... This computer worm is designed to transfer data about production lines from our industrial plants to locations outside Iran." In response to

11564-476: The time the Stuxnet worm was reportedly active at the plant. Iranian technicians, however, were able to quickly replace the centrifuges and the report concluded that uranium enrichment was likely only briefly disrupted. On 15 February 2011, the Institute for Science and International Security released a report concluding that: Assuming Iran exercises caution, Stuxnet is unlikely to destroy more centrifuges at

11682-583: The unit consisted of Yardley and two civilian clerks. It absorbed the Navy's cryptanalysis functions in July 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918 , and the army cryptographic section of Military Intelligence (MI-8) moved to New York City on May 20, 1919, where it continued intelligence activities as the Code Compilation Company under the direction of Yardley. After the disbandment of

11800-468: The worm also infected a nuclear power plant in Russia. Kaspersky noted, however, that since the power plant is not connected to the public Internet, the system should remain safe. The worm was first identified by the security company VirusBlokAda in mid-June 2010. Journalist Brian Krebs 's blog posting on 15 July 2010 was the first widely read report on the worm. The original name given by VirusBlokAda

11918-459: The worm could cause damage, Siemens reports that in the first four months since discovery, the malware was successfully removed from the systems of 22 customers without any adverse effects. Prevention of control system security incidents, such as from viral infections like Stuxnet, is a topic that is being addressed in both the public and the private sector. The US Department of Homeland Security National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) operates

12036-414: The worm spreading to an engineer's computer that had been connected to the centrifuges and spreading further when the engineer returned home and connected his computer to the internet. Kaspersky Lab experts at first estimated that Stuxnet started spreading around March or April 2010, but the first variant of the worm appeared in June 2009. On 15 July 2010, the day the worm's existence became widely known,

12154-426: The worm; and a rootkit component responsible for hiding all malicious files and processes, to prevent detection of Stuxnet. It is typically introduced to the target environment via an infected USB flash drive , thus crossing any air gap . The worm then propagates across the network, scanning for Siemens Step7 software on computers controlling a PLC. In the absence of either criterion, Stuxnet becomes dormant inside

12272-416: Was "Rootkit.Tmphider;" Symantec, however, called it "W32.Temphid," later changing to "W32.Stuxnet." Its current name is derived from a combination of some keywords in the software (".stub" and "mrxnet.sys"). The reason for the discovery at this time is attributed to the virus accidentally spreading beyond its intended target (the Natanz plant) due to a programming error introduced in an update; this led to

12390-522: Was a marksman's job." While the worm is promiscuous, it makes itself inert if Siemens software is not found on infected computers, and contains safeguards to prevent each infected computer from spreading the worm to more than three others, and to erase itself on 24 June 2012. For its targets, Stuxnet contains, among other things, code for a man-in-the-middle attack that fakes industrial process control sensor signals so an infected system does not shut down due to detected abnormal behavior. Such complexity

12508-461: Was behind the bombing, which U.S. President Ronald Reagan cited as a justification for the 1986 United States bombing of Libya . In 1999, a multi-year investigation by the European Parliament highlighted the NSA's role in economic espionage in a report entitled 'Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information'. That year, the NSA founded the NSA Hall of Honor ,

12626-711: Was created to intercept and decipher the communications of the Axis powers . When the war ended, the SIS was reorganized as the Army Security Agency (ASA), and it was placed under the leadership of the Director of Military Intelligence. On May 20, 1949, all cryptologic activities were centralized under a national organization called the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA). This organization

12744-521: Was described by an NSA manager as "some of the most productive operations in TAO because they preposition access points into hard target networks around the world." Computers seized by the NSA due to interdiction are often modified with a physical device known as Cottonmouth. Cottonmouth is a device that can be inserted in the USB port of a computer to establish remote access to the targeted machine. According to

12862-517: Was established as the Cable and Telegraph Section, which was also known as the Cipher Bureau. It was headquartered in Washington, D.C., and was part of the war effort under the executive branch without direct congressional authorization. During the war, it was relocated in the army's organizational chart several times. On July 5, 1917, Herbert O. Yardley was assigned to head the unit. At that point,

12980-399: Was meant "to sabotage the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz – where the centrifuge operational capacity had dropped over the past year by 30 percent." On 23 November 2010 it was announced that uranium enrichment at Natanz had ceased several times because of a series of major technical problems. A "serious nuclear accident" (supposedly the shutdown of some of its centrifuges ) occurred at

13098-502: Was originally established within the U.S. Department of Defense under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . The AFSA was tasked with directing the Department of Defense communications and electronic intelligence activities, except those of U.S. military intelligence units. However, the AFSA was unable to centralize communications intelligence and failed to coordinate with civilian agencies that shared its interests, such as

13216-526: Was reported that some of these data reflected eavesdropping on citizens in countries like Germany, Spain, and France, but later on, it became clear that those data were collected by European agencies during military missions abroad and were subsequently shared with NSA. In 2013, reporters uncovered a secret memo that claims the NSA created and pushed for the adoption of the Dual EC DRBG encryption standard that contained built-in vulnerabilities in 2006 to

13334-523: Was set up by the NSA to monitor the phone communications of Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker , as well as key leaders of the civil rights movement , including Martin Luther King Jr. , and prominent U.S. journalists and athletes who criticized the Vietnam War . However, the project turned out to be controversial, and an internal review by the NSA concluded that its Minaret program was "disreputable if not outright illegal". The NSA mounted

13452-547: Was the Technical Director of IAD and represented the NSA as cochairman of the Technical Working Group for the AES competition, and Michael Jacobs , who headed IAD at the time. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , the NSA believed that it had public support for a dramatic expansion of its surveillance activities. According to Neal Koblitz and Alfred Menezes , the period when

13570-417: Was to be a realization of information processing at higher speeds in cyberspace. The massive extent of the NSA's spying, both foreign and domestic, was revealed to the public in a series of detailed disclosures of internal NSA documents beginning in June 2013. Most of the disclosures were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden . On 4 September 2020, the NSA's surveillance program was ruled unlawful by

13688-559: Was to break the communications (chiefly diplomatic) of other nations. At the Washington Naval Conference , it aided American negotiators by providing them with the decrypted traffic of many of the conference delegations, including the Japanese . The Black Chamber successfully persuaded Western Union , the largest U.S. telegram company at the time, as well as several other communications companies, to illegally give

13806-573: Was used to attack Iran's nuclear program in November 2007, being developed as early as 2005, when Iran was still setting up its uranium enrichment facility. The second variant, with substantial improvements, appeared in March 2010, apparently because its authors believed that Stuxnet was not spreading fast enough; a third, with minor improvements, appeared in April 2010. The worm contains a component with

13924-697: Was worked on by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Boeing , Computer Sciences Corporation , IBM , and Litton Industries . Some NSA whistleblowers complained internally about major problems surrounding Trailblazer. This led to investigations by Congress and the NSA and DoD Inspectors General . The project was canceled in early 2004. Turbulence started in 2005. It was developed in small, inexpensive "test" pieces, rather than one grand plan like Trailblazer. It also included offensive cyber-warfare capabilities, like injecting malware into remote computers. Congress criticized Turbulence in 2007 for having similar bureaucratic problems as Trailblazer. It

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