Most of the comments here seem to be of the form "Well, maybe Stuxnet isn't that elegant, but it got the job done and that's what matters", but is it really that bad of software? All the technical people I've heard discuss the software in person gush over how advanced and clever it is. Can anyone point me toward a more technical discussion of Stuxnet which could confirm/dispute the OP's view?
You'll notice that most of the gushing has devolved to focusing on the payload and not the infection mechanism. That's because the worm itself is surprisingly average.
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Most of the comments here seem to be of the form "Well, maybe Stuxnet isn't that elegant, but it got the job done and that's what matters", but is it really that bad of software? All the technical people I've heard discuss the software in person gush over how advanced and clever it is. Can anyone point me toward a more technical discussion of Stuxnet which could confirm/dispute the OP's view?
Well, you can compare the Symantec analysis for Stuxnet to other malware (say, Conficker, the previous media darling).
http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/secur...
http://www.malwareinfo.org/files/W32.DownadupThreat.pdf
You'll notice that most of the gushing has devolved to focusing on the payload and not the infection mechanism. That's because the worm itself is surprisingly average.