The book is called countdown to zeo day stuxnet and the launch of the worlds First Digital weapon. The author, wired magazine reporter kim zetter. Ms. Zetter, what is or what was stuxnet . Guest stuxnet was a virus worm that was used to attack Irans Nuclear plant in at tans, is and so the work was designed to manipulate the computers that control the centrifuges and speed them up and slow them down in order to degrade the level of uranium enrichment and also do some wear and tear on the centrifuges and destroy them. Host what was unique about stuxnet . Guest stuxnet was really sophisticated. Its, first of all, i guess the most unique thing was this was a virus that was designed to physically destroy something n. The past weve seen malware that steals passwords, credit card numbers, things like that, but wed never seen something that was designed to physically destroy, essentially, leap out of the Digital World into the physical realm and have some kind of kinetic activity. That was the
Connection with computers were infected meaning that they didnt need to work from outside to get into. Maybe the first version of stuxnet was planted there and maybe they lost that access in subsequent versions and the maven the reason why they had to add zero days to spread. Host kim zetter has been with wired magazine since 2003. Prior to that, pc world. Ms. Zetter, are you a techy . Guest no. Know i get into tech journalism journalism, not by choice. And then found i really loved it. I dont particularly like gadgets in particular or computers in the sense of taking them apart and programming things like that i love the issues around computers. Issues around cybersecurity and privacy issues and civil liberties, those are the things that attracted. Host what was it about stuxnet the passage enough to write about . Guest it was multifaceted. It wasnt a simple worm and it wasnt a simple attack and was unlike anything weve seen before. It was just multiple ways of approaching this story