Computer Virus As Bad As A-Bomb?

Have Little Boy and Fat Man, the nuclear devices dropped on Japan to end World War II in Asia and the Pacific, been replaced by Stuxnet? The question is raised in a report from  Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Analysts who have viewed the Stuxnet virus, which sabotaged the Iranian nuclear centrifuges, call its use a watershed moment in cyber warfare, because it was the first instance of a specially designed cyber weapon used to attack the industrial infrastructure of a sovereign nation.

The success of the attack has demonstrated that cyber attacks can be not only successful but devastating.

Ralph Langner, an independent cyber security  expert based in Germany, and his team of experts, analyzed the code contained in the Stuxnet virus and were surprised by what they found.

According to Langner, "code analysis makes it clear that Stuxnet is not about sending a message or proving a concept, it is about destroying its targets with utmost determination in military style."

In a recent article, David Gerwitz, the cyber terrorism adviser for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, argues that the Stuxnet virus has ushered in an era in warfare and will spark a virtual arms race similar to how Hiroshima sparked the nuclear arms race.

Gerwitz calls the Stuxnet virus the "Little Boy and Fat Man of the digital age," in reference to the two atomic weapons used by the United States against Japan in World War II.


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