Cyber weapon · July 15, 2010 · 6 min
Stuxnet: the malware that did not steal data. It broke centrifuges in Iran
MedellínSoftware · Medellín, Colombia
Discovered in 2010. It aimed at the controllers at Natanz. The press and the forensics reconstructed it as a U.S. and Israeli operation: the first cyber weapon that damaged the physical world.
medellinsoftware.com/story/stuxnet-la-primera-arma-que-rompio-maquinas/
Found
2010
Target
Natanz
Damage
Centrifuges
Attribution
U.S. · Israel
Stuxnet did not ask for bitcoin. It looked for a specific Siemens controller and, behind it, the centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment plant. When it found them, it lied: the machine spun out of range and the screen said everything was fine.
Symantec documented it in 2010. The New York Times, with intelligence sources, described the operation as a joint U.S.–Israeli program to slow Iran's nuclear work without a bombing. About a thousand centrifuges were ruined, according to those reconstructions.
It was the break. Until then a virus stole or encrypted. This one changed revolutions per minute. The code escaped the isolated network and showed up on computers around the world that were not the target.
Fifteen years later it is still the reference when someone asks whether an attack can shut a factory, not only a server.
The desk
The file is public. The briefing is requested.
AI and deep military intelligence. Medellín.