Colbert Admits Stuxnet Stumps Him: 'A Rare Example Of A Subject I Don't Know Much About' (VIDEO)

On Tuesday's The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert, assisted by ABC correspondent Christiane Amanpour, sat down with cyberwar expert David Albright to discuss the Stuxnet computer worm that paralyzed Iran's nuclear program in 2010.

The New York Times calls Stuxnet "the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed" and reports that the worm "wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges."

Albright, who founded the Institute For Science and International Security, described Stuxnet's destructive and elusive nature to the Colbert audience. "It was not a knockout punch by any means," Albright said, "but it certainly surprised the Iranians, set them back, [and] it's caused some serious damage."

No one knows for certain who was responsible for embedding the Stuxnet worm into the Iranian industrial computers, but Albright indicated that intelligence agents could have been behind the attack. "The biggest suspects are Israel and the United States, maybe with a little German help," he said.

By now, Iran's affected industrial facilities have recovered, but no one has taken credit for planting the worm. Why not? "It's an act of war," stated Albright.

"Is it really, though?" asked Colbert. "Is it an act of war when a Nigerian prince tries to get me to send him my bank account information?"

Perhaps, Albright suggested, if the worm had caused more damage, the Iranians may have treated Stuxnet as an act of war. Colbert, apparently stumped, admitted that this isn't his area of expertise. "This is a rare example of a subject I don't know much about and a region I don't know much about. I wish I had a more intelligent question to ask you," he said, before calling Christiane Amanpour to his side to continue the interview for him (although Colbert attempted to pretend he was the one asking Amanpour's questions).

Amanpour asked Albright whether Stuxnet was an act of war and, if so, what might the consequence be for a country like the United States. Albright replied:

First shot was Stuxnet. What's the second shot? What are the Iranians going to do? Are they going to launch a cyber attack against us? We're very vulnerable. We have a lot of industrial facilities that are not well protected that could be attacked in some kind of cyber attack by a country like Iran. [...] Maybe this is better than any military strike. No one died. [...] But we may get attacked too. We need to think about that.

See Stephen Colbert and Christiane Amanpour interview David Albright in the video (below).

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Comments

[rotorhead1871]

10:37 PM on 02/17/2011

Cyber Victory.....while not a total victory will probably delay iran 5 years...the battles will go on

[scorpioman]

08:24 PM on 02/17/2011

all future wars will be cyber wars

[rotorhead1871]

10:35 PM on 02/17/2011

NOT ALL.......

[Sean 6399]

02:07 PM on 02/17/2011

The feds would do joyous backflips if the Iranians launched a cyber attack against the US. That would be just the excuse they need to "go loud" on Tehran.

[lensman3]

12:17 PM on 02/17/2011

Time to block all 214.0.0.0/8 and 215.0.0.0/8 Internet Domains. These two /8 domains are the US Military. Anything from these two Domain groups would be up to no good!

[rotorhead1871]

10:39 PM on 02/17/2011

wa wa...just move to costa rica, they got nice beaches there, bye bye...

[deejayii]

01:29 AM on 02/17/2011

Stuxnet was not a worm or a virus. It took huge technical resources to create, exploiting not one but several zero-day vulnerabilities. It took creating bogus certificates which passed scrutiny in order to get into the controllers' operating system, and great technical expertise to write software that reported back to the controller that all was well while the centrifuges were spinning out of control, ramping up to a very high speed and then suddenly shutting down, causing serious damage.

This was a shot across the bow, not a one-off attack. Sophisticated control systems operate their oil production facilities and Iran is the 2nd largest producer in the Mid East. Curtailment of production, even just 25%, would wreak havoc for the developed world. China needs Iran's oil and this was a wake-up call to them as well as the Iranians. There may be yet another software "device" lying in wait for the call to action.

This was a rehearsal. And with ferment going on all around the the Ayatollahs are aware that they too may be heading for Sharm el Shaikh or their equivalent without a Stuxnet reprise.

[bnorwood]

11:52 PM on 02/16/2011

Pandora opened the box, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing which lay at the bottom, and that was Hope. Poetry perhaps soon to be irony.

[rotorhead1871]

10:36 PM on 02/16/2011

thats uh....cus uh....its technical....

[Roarcat72]

04:59 PM on 02/16/2011

If I was to place a wager on who was behind the worm, I'm willing to go with Israel, because they are the ones that feel most threatened by Iran having any nuclear capabilities. Iran is as worrisome as a cloudy day for the US.

[Troff]

07:24 PM on 02/16/2011

Well, that and the potential references to notable dates in modern Jewish history in the worm.

[jsgaetano]

02:31 PM on 02/16/2011

This is pretty typical of America's non-cyber policy too.  The US attacks other countries with impunity, but they whine and cry if other countries attack them (and even louder if it's retaliatory).

[StansDad]

02:57 PM on 02/16/2011

As opposed to what? lying there and taking it? It's warfare.

[jsgaetano]

03:32 PM on 02/16/2011

Lying where, taking what?
 
How many nations has Iran attacked in all of human history?  Zero.
 
Iran is persuing civilian nuclear power, as they have a right to do under the NNPT.  But that's the problem with conservatives- they always want to deny people their legal rights.

[RedDogBear]

04:06 PM on 02/16/2011

I agree its amazing. Also, the disparity between what the US can do and what others can do. If Iran attacked the US this way I think there is a good chance the US would hit back with bombs.

I also think its ironic we are spending all this money on cyber-warfare supposedly in the name of defense and yet we are the ones initiating the most destructive weapons.

One thing to think about, a virus isn't a bomb. When a bomb is used there isn't much left. Not so with a virus. I wonder how difficult it would be for Iran to re-engineer the code for this one and then use it for their own purposes.

[jsgaetano]

04:50 PM on 02/16/2011

That was actually a huge discussion in the cyber security community on why this was such an absolutely stupid and ham-handed move.
 
It's like giving Iran a insignificant and temporary setback, but handing them a really powerful weapon for their trouble.
 
And it's not just Iran that has it now, it's "out there", for any virus writer to reverse engineer, and furthermore, even without the code it serves as a proof of concept.  Now let's say terrorists want to attack a power plant.  All they have to do is research automated hardware used in key failure points, and write viruses which will attack it.