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Iran’s nuclear plans under cyber attack

Cyber attack suspected on Iranian N-plans THE AUSTRALIAN,  Tom Coghlan * From: The Times * September 25, 2010 3 A COMPUTER virus that has infected more than 60,000 machines in Iran may be a sophisticated cyber-warfare attack on Iran’s clandestine nuclear arms program, according to software experts.
The “Stuxnet Worm” was detected in July but has since evolved through a number of refinements. This virus is distinct because it is designed to attack the software that controls machinery in a specific industrial installation.

Industry experts have speculated that the target could be the Natanz facility, where Iran conducts its nuclear enrichment program…..

It is fairly safe to say that Iran or a specific organisation within Iran was the target,” said Kevin Hogan, head of the Dublin global response centre for Symantec, an internet security company.

While warning that much about the Stuxnet Worm remained unclear, he said: “The virus searches for the Siemens Simatic Step 7 program [which] allows a pipeline substation to function or a petrol refinery, sewage treatment plant, potentially a nuclear processing plant. Stuxnet modifies the programs in those devices, it is very implementation specific.”

The Siemens software is used for controlling and monitoring temperature within an industrial plant. Alan Bentley, senior vice-president of the IT security specialist Lumension, described the virus as “the most refined piece of malware ever discovered”.

Features of the Stuxnet virus have led industry experts to speculate that a nation state may be behind its creation, with Israel and the US the most obvious suspects. They cited as one such feature the sophisticated nature of the program, which exploits four previously unknown flaws within the Windows software used by most computers.

Another feature that has led experts to suspect a government is that the program makes no attempt to elicit money, the most common feature of cyber-crime. They also pointed to the time and resources needed for its creation — about 10 specialist programmers working full-time for six months…….A computer virus that has infected more than 60,000 machines in Iran may be a sophisticated cyber-warfare attack on Iran’s clandestine nuclear arms program, software experts have told The Times.

Cyber attack suspected on Iranian N-plans | The Australian

September 27, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, reactor