Quotes from Kim Zetter

But all of this confirmed that as shocking as the revelations about Stuxnet, Duqu, and Flame were, they likely were just the shallow tip of a stockpile of tools and weapons the United States and Israel had built.

In addition to these spreading mechanisms, Stuxnet had a peer-to-peer component that let it update old versions of itself when new ones were released. This let them update Stuxnet remotely on machines that weren't directly connected to the internet but were connected to other machines on a local network. To spread an update, Stuxnet installed a file-sharing server and client on each infected machine,

That's when the British captain, Eric Moody, made one of the most famous understatements in the history of aviation. "Ladies and gentlemen," he told the passengers, "this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four of the engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

Before Stuxnet's malicious commands went into action, the malware sat patiently on the PLC for about two weeks, sometimes longer, recording legitimate operations as the controller sent status reports back to monitoring stations. Then when Stuxnet's malicious commands leapt into action, the malware replayed the recorded data back to operators to blind them to anything amiss on the machines

Although more than 12 million viruses and other malicious files are captured each year, only about a dozen or so zero-days are found among them.

But one person's national security tool can be another's tool of oppression, and there's no guarantee that a government that buys zero days won't misuse them to spy on political opponents and activists or pass them to another government that will.