US officials have warned that clones of the Stuxnet worm could be used to target the country's critical infrastructure.
First detected last year, the virus was designed to attack Scada (supervisory control and data acquisition systems) at an Iranian nuclear plant.
Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have now cautioned that cloned Stuxnet are readily available online and could be used to target utilities and water treatment plans, among other US assets.
"The Department is concerned that attackers could use the increasingly public information about the code to develop variants targeted at broader installations of programmable equipment in control systems," written comments from DHS officials, posted on Wired.com, said.
Meanwhile, businesses have been warned by Imperva that the number of web attacks taking place is increasing, reaching a peak of 25,000 an hour.
The research found web applications come under attack every two minutes, thanks to the increasing levels of automation being used by cybercriminals.
Posted by Richard Jones