Bought my first house

[Smitty-48]

this is actually an old plan resurrected from the early 1980s

the Soviets in 1979 suddenly began moving tactical INF's onto the trace in Europe led by the SS-20 truck mounted IRBM's

so America was outgunned at the theater level, didn't have the INFs to respond from land

so the plan was to use the American & British Trident missiles in the theater counterforce role, flying on a very short or "depressed" trajectory

[Smitty-48]

things have actually been evolving away from MAD for decades now

MAD is supposed to be you just have strategic countervalue weapons which hold each others cities hostage, and nothing else

no tactical nuclear weapons at all

things are going in the complete opposite direction now, the new doctrine is Prompt Global Strike

that's tactical nuclear warheads mounted on hypersonic delivery systems to hit the enemy so fast they don't have time to respond

it's all moving towards preemptive first strike options now, particularly with precision, stealth, big data and cyber war in support

[Smitty-48]

to give you an example of how slick cyber war is getting

the CIA & Mossad actually put the Stuxtnet into the Iranian nuclear program, without being connected to the network at all

they actually had agents in Iran, broadcasting it wirelessly into the Iranian computers somehow

they slipped it in without the Iranians even noticing, the Iranians didn't think it was possible without being connected

that's the sort of thing you could use to get inside the launch control of an adversary to sabotage it

like you hack into Russia's Perimeter system without them realizing and tell it to turn itself off

Stuxtnet didn't just sabotage the Iranian computers

it made those computers project information which told the Iranians everything was fine while it was going about its business

the Iranians looking at their screens which said everything was working normally, Stuxnet wrecking things behind that facade

[Xenophon]

to give you an example of how slick cyber war is getting

the CIA & Mossad actually put the Stuxtnet into the Iranian nuclear program, without being connected to the network at all

they actually had agents in Iran, broadcasting it wirelessly into the Iranian computers somehow

they slipped it in without the Iranians even noticing, the Iranians didn't think it was possible without being connected

that's the sort of thing you could use to get inside the launch control of an adversary to sabotage it

like you hack into Russia's Perimeter system without them realizing and tell it to turn itself off

Stuxtnet didn't just sabotage the Iranian computers

it made those computers project information which told the Iranians everything was fine while it was going about its business

the Iranians looking at their screens which said everything was working normally, Stuxnet wrecking things behind that facade

I know nothing about Stuxnet, but if I were going to try and broadcast something without being connected to the network, I'm thinking they might have just deployed it via Bluetooth. Bluetooth adapters are in everything nowadays, so why not Iranian computers? Maybe they'd have to actually remote into the stations just to configure the Bluetooth adapter to accept any incoming pairing requests. I dunno. Sounds cool, though.

From Wikipedia:

Stuxnet attacked Windows systems using an unprecedented four zero-day attacks (plus the CPLINK vulnerability and a vulnerability used by the Conficker worm[62]). It is initially spread using infected removable drives such as USB flash drives,[32][56] which contain Windows shortcut files to initiate executable code.[63] 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 the Internet.[64][65][66] 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.[34] Amongst these exploits were remote code execution on a computer with Printer Sharing enabled,[67] and the LNK/PIF vulnerability,[68] in which file execution is accomplished when an icon is viewed in Windows Explorer, negating the need for user interaction.[69] Stuxnet is unusually large at half a megabyte in size,[64] and written in several different programming languages (including C and C++) which is also irregular for malware.[26][31][61] The Windows component of the malware is promiscuous in that it spreads relatively quickly and indiscriminately.[56]

The malware has both user mode and kernel mode rootkit ability under Windows,[66] and its device drivers have been digitally signed with 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.[56][64] 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.[70] Both compromised certificates have been revoked by Verisign.

Two websites in Denmark and Malaysia were configured as command and control servers for 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.[66][49]

So they basically uploaded malware to the internal network, and let it do it's thing. That's why ransomware is so hard to detect. By the time you know it's there, the majority of your files are already encrypted. Deb from accounting clicks an e-mail link, unknowingly downloads it into her downloads folder, where it starts encrypting stuff to all connected folders, including mapped network drives, which then spreads to any station that accesses the infected mapped drive. Boom, your whole domain is encrypted and you're wiring Bitcoin to Vietnam.

[Smitty-48]

the Iranian computers were not hooked up to anything, it was a completely closed network with no wireless interface at all

Bluetooth would require a wireless interface to connect with and these computers had no connectivity like that

whatever inserted Stuxtnet into the Iranian centerfuges was way beyond Bluetooth

these sorts of computers are kept isolated so that they can't be hacked, thus why the Iranians weren't concerned

there was no physical connection, there was no wireless connection to receive Bluetooth, it was a self contained intranet

these computers were actually rather low tech and deliberately so

it's the same with the computers the Air Force uses to launch ICBM's

they're not networked, there is no way to hack into them by way of the internet

it's not the same as the CIA putting Stuxtnet in your PC

[DBTrek]

Harder to hack, but still hackable.
If the computer can accept data, it can be hacked.

Want an easy example?
Firmware updates.
Insert malicious code into any of the chipset's firmware updates.
Wait for Iranian scientists to update the core system (which s done manually on On-Prem systems).
Hack.

[Smitty-48]

Harder to hack, but still hackable.
If the computer can accept data, it can be hacked.

it was not by Bluetooth however

these computers had no physical connection to the internet nor anything else outside the facility

they has no antennas nor any other wireless interface at all, no way to receive radio by conventional means

somehow Stuxtnet was broadcasted right into their CPU's without an interface, and from some considerable distance, miles away

[DBTrek]

The firmware updates on closed systems are delivered via USB or smart cards.
There is no known broadcast "code induction" technology similar to EMP electromagnetic induction.
You just load the chipset firmware update with malware - and wait for the scientists to eventually, manually, update their systems.

Also gives you access to whatever other systems use the same chipsets after the update.
win/win

(Not saying this is how it was done, but this is one way you hack an isolated on-prem system)

[SuburbanFarmer]

Dude there’s no kind of ‘data beam’ that writes to hard drives. The software came in either via WiFi, Bluetooth, or a disk/stick. There is no other way for this to happen.

[Smitty-48]

The firmware updates on closed systems are delivered via USB or smart cards.
There is no known broadcast "code induction" technology similar to EMP electromagnetic induction.
You just load the chipset firmware update with malware - and wait for the scientists to eventually, manually, update their systems.

Also gives you access to whatever other systems use the same chipsets after the update.
win/win

at first that was the idea, they were going to get an agent in there to insert the malware physically into the computers

but Iranian security proved too tight, they couldn't get anybody near it

so they had a team of operators go in with a backpack, setting up outside the facility from miles away

whatever was in this backpack, was able to transmit the virus right into the hardware by radio with no antenna to receive it