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Stuxnet computer worm might target North Korea’s nukes

While U.S. officials are trying to figure out how to respond to North Korea’s unveiling of a new uranium enrichment plant, there are clues that a piece of malware believed to have hit Iran’s nuclear efforts could also target the centrifuges Pyongyang’s preparing to spin.

Some of the equipment used by the North Koreans to control their centrifuges — necessary for turning uranium into nuclear-bomb-ready fuel — appear to have come from the same firms that outfitted the Iranian nuclear program, according to David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a long-time watcher of both nuclear programs. “The computer-control equipment North Korea got was the same Iran got,” Albright told Danger Room.

Nearly two months before the Yongbyon revelation, Albright published a study covering the little that’s publicly known about the North’s longstanding and seemingly stalled efforts at enriching its own uranium. (.pdf) Citing unnamed European intelligence officials, Albright wrote that the North Korean control system “is dual use, also used by the petrochemical industry, but was the same as those acquired by Iran to run its centrifuges.”

Could Stuxnet Mess With North Korea’s New Uranium Plant? | Danger Room | Wired.com

November 23, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, safety, Uranium | antinuclear, enriched, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, radioactive, uranium