AF/91 Gulf War Virus

[Gary Warner <gar () askgar com>]

Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah wrote:

> Actually, we had one in the malware world, the "Desert Storm" virus.  Again, 
> abbreviating tremendously:
>
> - someone (InfoWorld?  April 1991 edition) prints an April Fools hoax story 
> about the US/CIA/NSA/whomever planting a virus in a printer that shuts down the 
> Iraqi air defence system prior to Desert Storm (the story was actually lampooning 
> the then new Windows version (3.1?)
>
> - a year after Desert Storm, US News & World Report produces a book about 
> Desert Storm that cites the story
>
> - book gets all kinds of press
>
> - AV types point out that the story is technically questionable and likely untrue
>  

Yeah, I played in that round, I think . . . (google.google.google) 

Here it is!

John Gantz named his fictitious virus "AF/91" which most of us took to 
mean it was an April Fool's day joke, since it was published on April 
1st, 1991, but many on Virus-L were not amused:

   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.053
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.055
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.059
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.060
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.061
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.063
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.064
   
http://www.phreak.com/archives/The_Collection/newsletr/virus/virus_l/1991/virusl4.066




================================
(Jan 14, 1992 . . . )

The US News and World Report story cited "two unidentified senior US 
officials"
who confirmed that the virus was designed by the NSA and transmitted in 
a laser
printer smuggled into Baghdad.

The author of the story, Brian Duffy, told the AP's Robert Burns "I have 
no doubt"
US intelligence agents carried out such an operation, though he 
acknowledged the
similarities with the InfoWorld article were "obviously troubling".

==============
(Jan 17, 1992 . . . )
"Contending it has re-checked its sources, US News & World Report says
it is standing behind its original story that US intelligence agents 
tried to disable
an Iraqi military network with a computer virus transported to Baghdad 
in a printer
just before the start of the Persian Gulf War"

"Duffy said the magazine checked with two senior Pentagon officers who 
confirme
the planting of the virus in the printer, but said it was not known 
whether the printer
ever reached Iraq."

===============

(Burns was a cool journalist who actually hung out in places like 
Virus-L and RISKS-DIGEST so he might know what he was talking about . . . )

================

After refusing to back down from their story, US News and World Report 
even included it in their book on the Gulf War in 1992:   "Triumph 
Without Victory", which later was quoted on several occasions in other 
books, including James Adams in "The Next World War", in Popular 
Mechanics (March 1999) and by former CIA Director William Webster in a 
November 1998 presentation at the Center for Strategic and International 
Studies, "Cybercrime, CyberTerrorism, CyberWarfare".

In Adams' version, the virus didn't get a chance to function, because 
the Air Force bombed the building where the printer was housed before it 
had a chance to work.

Webster's version said:  "The United States has readied a powerful 
arsenal of cyberweapons. . . . planting logic bombs in foreign computer 
networks to paralyze a would-be opponent's air defense system."

_-_
gar



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