Cyber attack forced AC/DC’s Thunderstruck to play at top volume on Iranian nuclear facility computers.

Gianluca Mezzofiore, writing for the International Business Times, reports:

“Mikko Hypponen, lead researcher at the Finnish computer security firm F-Secure, reported in his blog that a scientist working at the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) sent him an e-mail about his systems getting hit by a cyber-attack. “I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom,” reads the email. “There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out,” the e-mail reads. “I believe it was playing ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC.”

Assuming the Israelis or American intelligence agencies deployed this malware attack, why would they announce it like some sort of college prank instead of letting it run undetected? Is it psychological warfare on some level? Or are the people who are coding malware attacks for the US a bunch of giggling sixteen year olds?

Mezzofiore goes on the report that Iranians believe an open source hacking tool called Metasploit was used. Metasploit was designed to find vulnerabilities in software. Its reportedly very easy and cheap to develop.

The fact is, it’s unlikely that US or Israeli intelligence agencies would announce themselves by playing AC DC in the middle of the night. Which leaves us with another more bizarre possibility. Did some kid in New Jersey decide to take down a computer system at an Iranian nuclear facility? And if so, what the hell is coming next?

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