27C3: Adventures in analyzing Stuxnet (Bruce Dang from Microsoft)

basti00078 HN recommenders · 2011–2024
95K views · talk · evergreen · Uploaded 2010-12-29

Bruce Dang of Microsoft gives a 27C3 talk on how the Stuxnet vulnerabilities were found and analyzed. He walks through the techniques used to triage them and the details of each zero-day exploit, down to the opcode level.

HN recommends it as the definitive technical deep dive into Stuxnet's zero-days from someone who analyzed it first-hand.

Watch on YouTube

10 comments from Hacker News

@dmix2011 · in “Stuxnet is now on GitHub”

For those curious, a Microsoft employee broke down each of the exploits that Stuxnet used at a conference recently: [VIDEO]

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@spudlyo2011 · in “Black ops: how HBGary wrote backdoors for the government”

LNK files can point to DLLs that get loaded by Explorer when it draws the icon for the link target. I only know this because I watched an excellent video explaining the 0-day vulnerabilities that stuxnet used by Microsoft leet hax0r Bruce Dang. [VIDEO]

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@JonnieCache2011 · in “Did the US write Stuxnet? Deputy Defense Secretary won't deny it”

Also, check out this excellent 27C3 presentation from Bruce Dang, a microsoft malware analyst, where he cracks numerous gags about mossad. [VIDEO] It's well worth watching anyway, lots of good info on the various exploits used by stuxnet, down to the opcode level. He's a pretty funny guy as well.

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@phlux2011 · in “Stuxnet Virus Weapon Now Being Sold On The Black Market”

Watch these in this order: [LINK] - brief overview great animation [LINK] - ted talk on stux [VIDEO] detailed analysis of stuxnet the last one is long and Bruce appears to be an arrogant prick, but it is clear - cyber war has been here for a while.

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@phlux2011 · in “LulzSec releases trove of AZ law enforcement documents”

PSY-OP MOTHERFUCKER, CAN YOU HACK IT?! This is NOT script kiddies going at it, this is bio-stux.... See the following: Watch these in this order: [LINK] - brief overview great animation [LINK] - ted talk on stux [VIDEO] . detailed analysis of stuxnet the last one is long and Bruce appears to be an arrogant prick, but it is clear - cyber war has been here for a while. --- As I have mentioned, cyber war is here - and the legislation is lacking in its awareness - but becuase we have incompetant douches in charge of tech legislation, we will have physical war used as a metaphor to cyber warfare and thus have draconian influences from physical imprisonment being applied to digital situations. Utterly broken.

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@tbrock2013 · in “Stuxnet Missing Link Found, Resolves Some Mysteries Around the Cyberweapon”

If anyone hasn't seen this video from the Microsoft team analyzing how this went down, I highly suggest watching. I was on the edge of my seat! [VIDEO]

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@samstave2016 · in “Unilateral Israeli changes to Stuxnet caused its exposure, angering US”

Stuxnet was such an amazing event. The speculation at first, the quasi confirmation a little later based on certain items in the code. The dissection of it and the tech talks by Microsoft and others on its design and build... And then that it had a successor - and now it comes out that Israel and US squabbling over what team did what which allowed it to be exposed. It is such an amazing cornerstone in the cyberpunk reality of where the world is heading. If you haven't watched the tech talks on stuxnet and duqu, please do - super interesting. [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK]

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@nodesocket2021 · in “Microsoft Patches Six Zero-Day Security Holes”

Are these on the same level as Stuxnet? For an amazing technical deep dive into each 0-day Stuxnet vulnerability watch this talk with Bruce Dang from Microsoft[1]. I really enjoy his natural speaking style (it's like talking about Stuxnet over beers with him). [1] [VIDEO]

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@samstave2021 · in “How many people have Q Clearance?”

I recall the two biggest stories about foreign spies in these labs: 1. Chinese blamed for stealing Los Alamos secret by stashing hard drives behind a copy machine and grabbing them later. 2. Chinese engineer at JPL worked there for decades and was thought to be a nice family in Pasadina - but lived in a really super spartan house and the wife was the engineer's handler and their kids were the mules to haul data back to ccp 3. China's trickle hack on Lockheed by phishing employees who had attended defense conferences 4. China hacking Lockheed providers in Taiwan with an air gap and sneaker-net to gain access to Lockheed laptops via USB exploits (this was one of the factors, IIRC why epoxy in USB ports was common) -- ((But if you ever had any SGI O2 machines -- there was an additional port (serial I think - I don't think they were USB) but this 'option' was several thousand more $ -- but it was on every machine and all you had to do was punch out the plastic cover from the case) 5. Israel + USA hacking Iran via STUXNET in the same method with air-gaps etc. 6. The guy who worked at oak ridge, took on a Russian Mail Order Bride and got her a job in oak ridge (accounting I think, I can't recall) -- and it turned out she was a Russian handler, but they denied it -- but everyone knew that every single person from the USG who went to Russia was assigned a female handler, and these handlers were highly trained, and they had several levels of handlers above them to ensure non-defection

@akira25012024 · in “Engineer Used Water Pump to Get $1B Stuxnet Malware into Iranian Nuclear Plant”

Does anyone else remember the 27C3 presentation on this? My take away was that Stuxnet was _largely_ enabled by 0day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's products. The especially damning one was the print spooler script running vulnerability. Anyways, from this perspective, even back then, the analysis was pretty thorough: [VIDEO]

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