photo via Gawker
Imagine a fun day at work. (Just go ahead and try.) Blasting AC/DC through the speakers sounds pretty fun, right? That might or might not have been what the hacker thought that attacked the computers of Iran’s nuclear facilities: A malware caused the computers at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to play AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” on maximum volume. The chief researcher of the computer security firm F-Secure, Mikko Hypponen, commented on the incident:
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. […] There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.
This incident is following a malware attack on the same facilities back in 2010, but then the virus caused actual centrifuges to be wrecked. This time, the worst case scenario seemed to include earplugs and busted speakers. There is no information as to who is responsible for the loudest virus ever made, but the musical malware is suggesting that there is no immediate physical threat behind the computer attack. After all, the song choice could have been “Meltdown” instead… Hypponen suggests that the affected emails have been sent and received from within the AEOI, it is unsure whether we will ever find out who caused the Rock ‘n Roll damnation.
[via New Scientist]
