Anatomy of a computer virus explained

Motion designer Patrick Clair tells the story of Stuxnet, “a Microsoft Windows computer worm discovered in July 2010 that targets industrial software and equipment.” Unlike many viruses and worms, Stuxnet was designed with a specific target — Siemens Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems — and left any other systems unharmed. Stuxnet could then increase pressure in nuclear reactors and turn off oil pipelines, all the while showing monitors everything was fine.

Get the full skinny in Clair’s well done motion graphic video below.

[Video link | Thanks, Nigel]

7 Comments

  • It’s good to see a video from Hungry Beast on here – they’ve been showing one infovid like this per episode for the last few seasons. I’m not sure if Patrick Clair is the sole producer of them, but they’ve been very high quality lately.

    You should be able to see more of the videos at http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/ . Unfortunately, the full episodes on iview are probably locked to australian IPs only.

  • A little too much on the fear mongering and not enough actual information. The production values give it the impression of sharing information, but I can hear the exact same narration in head as spoken by a 20/20 reporter or Geraldo and simply dismissing the report as a scare tactic.

  • A little too flashy and sensationalist. There were many moving images and graphics, but I couldn’t always tell what they were trying to convey. It could be informative, but distracting, to non-technical people.

    I question his definition of the word ‘zero-day’. I argue that some of the exploits were pre-‘zero-day’ exploits.
    Many other vulnerabilities were old and known. Siemens had already fixed many of the exploits for their customers, but Iran couldn’t always obtain the fixes for their equipment, due to the black-market nature of their equipment, or due to incompetence. Iran obtained it’s equipment though a grey-market, not directly through Siemens. This same virus was present in other countries, without the devastating effects.

    Although I appreciate that he used the word ‘Rumor’ when referring to the US and/or Israel’s rumored involvement.

  • Martin von Wyss June 28, 2011 at 6:03 pm

    Pity about the extra apostrophe in the possessive “Nine months after its detection”. For me that undermines the credibility of the piece. Otherwise, if the target audience is the general public, it’s very well done.

  • Yes, an apostrophe or script revision may up the pieces infographic standard, but it’s
    really impressive piece of from my pixel pushing point of view.

  • A little too much on the fear mongering and not enough actual information. The production values give it the impression of sharing information, but I can hear the exact same narration in head as spoken by a 20/20 reporter or Geraldo and simply dismissing the report as a scare tactic.

  • Netter Beitrag zum Thema Computervirus. Dieser Blog gefällt mir ausgesprochen gut. Bitte unbedingt weiterbloggen. Viele Grüße, Evelyn!