Stuxnet: Here Comes Generation Two!

Son of Stuxnet?  With, "Everyone ready to revisit the 1880's again?" excerpts in italics:

Stuxnet, the first known weaponized software designed to destroy a specific industrial process, could soon be modified to target an array of industrial systems in the US and abroad, cyber experts told US senators Wednesday.

The Stuxnet malware, discovered this summer, was apparently designed to strike one target – Iran's nuclear-fuel centrifuge facilities, researchers now say. But Stuxnet's "digital warhead," they caution, could be copied and altered by others to wreak havoc on a much grander scale.

Variants of Stuxnet could target a host of critical infrastructure, from the power grid and water supplies to transportation systems, four cybersecurity experts told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

This is what most people don't understand, and what the media has failed to report:

"The concern for the future of Stuxnet is that the underlying code could be adapted to target a broader range of control systems in any number of critical infrastructure sectors," said Sean McGurk, acting director of the National Cyber-security and Communications Integration Center at the US Department of Homeland Security.

Stuxnet infiltrated and targeted an industrial control system software that is widely used in US infrastructure and industry, meaning the nation is vulnerable to future Stuxnet-like attacks, he said. "While we do not know which process was the intended target [of Stuxnet], it is important to note that the combination of Windows operating software and Siemens hardware can be used in control systems across critical infrastructure sectors – from automobile assembly lines to mixing baby formula to processing chemicals," said Mr. McGurk.

"Stuxnet is, at the very least, an important wake-up call for digitally enhanced and reliant countries – at its worst, a blueprint for future attackers," (Michael Assante, president of the National Board of Information Security Examiners) said. It is a "good example of a cyberthreat thought to be hypothetically possible, but not considered probable by many." Its sophistication "should disturb security professionals, engineers, businessmen, and government leaders alike."

Of the many realms of existence on this planet, the cyber/technosphere is among the fastest in overlapping and overall levels of development.  When an entity comes along that alters the course and future of its descendants, variations of that entity will occur, and those variants will undoubtedly be aimed at "perfecting" or "streamlining" traits in previous incarnations that are viewed as inefficient, or imperfect.  Of course, descendants of Stuxnet will be more powerful, more effective, and more destructive than Stuxnet itself.  The prototype is still fucking up the Iranian nuclear program.  What will Stuxnet's dirty little black market second generation offshoot going to do, and who will it target?  And then the third generation, and and the fourth, and then..

As with everything Internet;  Once it's out there, it's out there.  The only recourse against Stuxnet and its techno-offspring is focused determination and action geared towards defense against this new breed of cyber barbarians at the gate..  Even though the general public is not aware yet, the rules of cyberspace have most definitely changed..