IMPACTFUL VIRUSES IN HISTORY: STUXNET

Megan Poljacik • July 31, 2025

In the early 2000s, tensions in the middle east were on the rise. Iran’s government had begun expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities, insisting it was for nuclear energy purposes. However many countries around the globe feared it was a coverup for a nuclear weapons program. Despite pressure from United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran continued to enrich uranium. Frustrations reached a fever pitch and it appeared a conflict was imminent, until a mysterious solution came from a completely unexpected source: the Stuxnet Computer Worm. 

Although its origin is a mystery, its target was Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, particularly the centrifuges at a particular plant called Natanz. Because the target computers were not connected to the internet, it is widely believed Stuxnet got in through USB sticks from either spies, insiders or social engineering – think a USB stick dropped in a parking lot and someone plugging it in out of curiosity. This happens more than you think!


Once the worm was installed it began its silent infection. Its function was to seek out a very specific software, Siemens Step7, on all the computers that controlled the centrifuges. Utilizing a new and undiscovered software flaw, it would quietly take over the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), or the devices that tell machines what to, and change how the centrifuges spun. Sometimes it made them spin too fast, other times too slow, which damaged them over time. At the same time Stuxnet made sure the monitoring systems showed normal data so operators didn’t realize anything was wrong, even as they were being destroyed.


Stuxnet is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated and consequential pieces of malware ever made. This marked one of the first major examples of a cyberweapon being used to cause physical damage, and it helped usher in a new era of cyber warfare.

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CLOUD GOES DOWN?

By Megan Poljacik & Bryan Doherty • November 24, 2025
The internet has had a series of bad days over the last few months. In October, Microsoft 365 briefly went sideways in North America after a network misconfiguration disrupted access to Teams and Exchange Online before service recovered the same day. A few weeks later, Microsoft Azure suffered an outage after a faulty configuration change was pushed to Azure Front Door Configuration, affecting Microsoft 365, Xbox, and other services worldwide. Around the same time Amazon crashed, stating that an AWS disruption stemmed from a DNS automation bug associated with DynamoDB. This is an automated system that directs internet traffic that made a timing mistake, and that small glitch quickly snowballed and knocked parts of the service offline. Most recently, Cloudflare, a service many websites use to load faster and block bad traffic, went down, leaving millions unable to access sites and services. It’s no surprise that many business owners are now asking whether the cloud is still a safe choice for their business. Short answer: yes. For most small and mid-size companies, the cloud is still the safest, most cost-effective place to run everyday tools. It delivers enterprise-grade security, constant patching, and built-in resilience that would be expensive to match on your own. But “safe” doesn’t mean “never fail.”

ESTABLISHING AN AI POLICY FRAMEWORK: BALANCING INNOVATION AND RISK

August 27, 2025
By Bryan Doherty

DARK WEB MONITORING: ESSENTIAL SAFEGUARD OR WASTED SPEND?

By Megan Poljacik • June 26, 2025
With growing concerns about data breaches and stolen credentials, many businesses feel pressured to invest in services that claim to scan the dark web for leaked information. But before committing resources, it's worth asking whether these tools actually provide meaningful information or if they are an unproductive expenditure. The dark web is a hidden part of the internet that you can’t reach with standard browsers or search engines. It operates using a system called Tor, which stands for The Onion Router. Tor keeps users anonymous by sending their internet traffic through several different servers around the world, encrypting the data each time. This makes it extremely difficult to trace who someone is or where they’re connecting from. Unlike regular websites that end in .com or .org, dark web sites usually end in .onion and require the Tor browser to access them. While some people use the dark web for legitimate reasons like protecting their privacy or avoiding censorship, it’s mostly associated with hosting illegal activities like online black markets, where stolen corporate data is sold.