Stuxnet

Remember that there's really no "official" source for any of these infection figures. Often, when you trace them down, they lead to antivirus and malware firms, and their sources are anecdotal. The vested interests in promoting the epidemic nature of the worm are obvious.

Likewise with the notion of how hard this piece of malware was to create. A better metric, one you aren't seeing, is how hard this worm was to create compared to other worms. Most other worms aren't even "criminal", per se; they're pranks and dick-swinging. Apart from the SCADA components, is Stuxnet more complex than any prior worm? I think that question is very much up in the air. And by whose estimate did it take 6+ people to write?

You will be well served by skepticism when evaluating these stories. A similar conspiratorial pall could have cast Slammer or Conficker in the same cloak-and-dagger role (look how Mark Bowden, a reporter of no small repute, managed to write Conficker up).

Reading this – all the precision and thoroughness – inspired the same wry admiration as learning the story of Operation Babylon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera

The press sensationalism is, as always, exhausting, so it's great to read Schneier's balanced account. I am dying to know, for real, who set all of this up. Meeting the team who put it together would be a blast, too.