“IS ‘PARADISE’ TOO OVER THE TOP?”

Handling the Truth

AROUND 2009, SOME PEOPLE WHO KNEW A LOT ABOUT COMPUTERS and apparently had a lot of resources at their disposal set loose a computer virus to disable Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The malware eventually came to be known as “Stuxnet.” The New York Times dubbed it “the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed.”

Whoever wrote the code isn’t talking—one of those if-we-told-you-we’d-have-to-kill-you things. But the nonspies who followed its trail say Stuxnet carried two ingenious digital “warheads.” First, it made the computer-controlled centrifuges Iran was using to enrich uranium spin wildly out of control. Second, “the computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear ...

Get Widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees as if They're Real People now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.