A Brief History of Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 384

for internal research purposes but were publicly posted by mistake. AOL
removed the data after one day, but by then the news had spread all over
the internet. The AOL Chief Technology Officer resigned due to this mis-
hap.
• In June 2010, a new kind of attack occurred that was called the Stuxnet
worm. Although Stuxnet was spread by Microsoft Windows, it targeted
specialized Siemens industrial control computers. It happens that the Ira-
nian government uses embargoed Siemens computers in its nuclear pro-
gram for uranium enrichment. Although Stuxnet hit a number of com-
puters in Europe, about 60% of the known attacks were in Iran. The creat-
ors of Stuxnet have not been identified but are probably countries at odds
with Iran, which includes Israel and the United States, among others.
• In May 2012, another new kind of cyberattack hit the Middle East with
Iran again being the main target. Syria, Lebanon, and the Sudan were also
hit. This new attack was called Flame , and it is an alarming harbinger of
attacks to come. Flame does not just go after a few things such as email
addresses and personal information. Flame enters a computer as a Trojan
horse and, once there, it seeks out and steals data, Skype conversations,
photographs, and audio recordings. It also causes connected digital camer-
as to take pictures, which are also stolen, as are screenshots from running
software. The stolen data are routed back to the source, which has not
been identified. Given the sophistication of Flame, it is hypothesized that
it could only have come from China, Israel, Russia, or the United States.
An alarming news article in the Providence Journal on December 1, 2012,
stated that the former manager of the Social Security Office in Warwick, Rhode
Island, was arrested and is being tried for identity theft. He tapped into social se-
curity files, possibly from his own office. He then used the data to create a stolen
identity and a joint bank account. About $160,000 from the identity theft victim
was siphoned into his account. This is an indictment and not a conviction, but even
so, it paints an alarming picture.
Between federal, state, and municipal employees in various tax agencies and
social agencies, almost a million government workers in the United States have
access to everything needed to steal our identities and apply for credit cards or set
up new bank accounts. It is clear that much stronger vetting of government em-
ployees is needed in the computer era. For that matter, internal monitoring and en-
cryption of government files should be much stronger than it is.