Miscellanea

• Targets Windows-based control and monitoring software running used for some sort of industrial equipment used in nuclear power plants in Iran
• Exploits 4 previously unknown vulnerabilities in Windows (and 2 other known vulnerabilities)
• Able to update itself via peer-to-peer
• Reprograms external programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
• Digitally signed using two stolen certificates

People speculate that it would have taken many man-months to create, as well as knowledge of the Siemens software and hardware that it interfaces with. There is further speculation that it was created by the Israeli government to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

• Al-Mabhouh was a co-founder of the military wing of Hamas
• Al-Mabhouh had just arrived in Dubai
• He normally traveled with bodyguards, but they were not able to book passage on the same flight as him because it was full
• Was killed in his hotel room only 6 hours after arriving
• There are 29 suspects who worked together in the assassination plot. For example, some suspects reprogrammed the electronic door lock to Al-Mabhouh’s room while other suspects distracted tourists at the hotel
• Suspects carried forged or stolen British, Canadian, French, German and Irish passports
• Suspects arrived from different countries, stayed at different hotels, and departed to different countries
• Suspects arrived less than a day before the assassination, and departed less than a day after

People speculate that Mossad, Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, is behind the killings.