Re: The ineritors of Stuxnet
El Reg appears to have the story backwards. It isn't firmware that is installed on the PLC. It's trojans hidden in Windows programs that are used to load files into various bits of industrial hardware.
In other words, we're talking about bog standard Windows PC trojans that just happens to be riding along inside software that is used by people on their laptops to service industrial control systems. It's no different from trojans hidden inside pirated copies of games or Photoshop. Presumably the perpetrators will make money off this the same way they make money from any of the other trojanned software. These laptops after all will be spending a lot of their time hooked up to the Internet while the user is doing all the routine office work everyone else has to do.
This is nothing new to people who actually work in the industrial field. I was seeing this in cracked copies of Siemens software at least 15 years ago. Everyone in the business back then knew you could get cracked copies of their very, very, expensive development software from servers in eastern Europe and places like that, but that various bits of malware were guaranteed to come along for the ride. Piracy of this sort of software is pretty widespread, so trojanned copies are as well.
What has happened here is that companies selling Windows security software have smelled money in all the concern about cyber warfare, and they are now addressing a market that was too niche for them to care about before. All they need to due is to tune their existing Windows anti-virus software to look for the normal trojans these packages.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
