Epic Worm

The StuxNet worm has achieved a rare distinction, where the rumor mill is going berserk about what it is, what it does, and who is responsible.  A few other worms or viruses have achieved this, but not many.  The Morris Worm was the first, and the "Year Of The Worm" (2003) kind of achieved this collectively, but StuxNet is in an elite class.

Let's look at some of what people are saying about it:

• It's being called the "most sophisticated malware ever".
• It is said to have infected "millions of computers" in China.
• The code is said to contain strings referring to passages in the Bible, or to Iranian Jewish dissidents.
• Prople have made Youtube videos showing it taking over one of the target computers, which is causes to destroy things:

Just because the hype is dialed up to 11 doesn't mean that the worm isn't very sophisticated, and dangerous, and that our own systems are pretty vulnerable.  They are.

But ...

This is truly State-on-State Information Warfare.  The chaos may or may not be due to the worm's spread, but chaos was clearly the goal.  There is a whiff of panic from some of the stories we hear, like how Iran is rounding a bunch of people up, and arresting them as spies.

The best analogy that I can think of is the Spanish Civil War, where the German Luftwaffe first experimented with planned, coordinated air bombardments designed to disrupt command, control, and Communications.  StuxNet is the first malware that I've seen try this.  It's likely not a total success, but it's dead certain that many people are watching it, and the reaction to it.  The next time, it'll be even more disruptive.

Epic indeed.