nuclear-news

Cyberwar developing instead of nuclear war?

Cyber war on Iran has only just begun INQUIRER, By: Dan De Luce Agence France-Presse, July 13th, 2012 WASHINGTON – A US cyber war against Iran’s nuclear program may have only just begun and could escalate with explosions triggered by digital sabotage, experts say.

Although the Iranian regime remains vulnerable to more cyber attacks in the aftermath of the “Stuxnet” worm that disrupted its uranium enrichment work, Tehran may be receiving help from Russian proxies for its digital security, some analysts say.
The nuclear program is “really not that well protected” from more
digital assaults and Iran will be hard-pressed to safeguard its
uranium enrichment efforts from tainted software, said David Albright,
president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
“With Stuxnet, they lost about a year. And it caused a lot of
confusion. They really didn’t know what hit them,” he said. “It looks
like a viable way to disrupt their program.”
The United States, which reportedly masterminded the Stuxnet operation
along with Israel, has every incentive to press ahead with a cyber
campaign to undermine Iran’s atomic ambitions, according to analysts.
The next cyber attack, possibly in combination with more traditional
spycraft, could shut off valves or issue incorrect orders that might
cause an explosion at a sensitive site.
“I think that it could get more violent,” Albright told AFP. “I would
expect more facilities to blow up.”
A major explosion at a missile plant in Iran in November sparked
speculation that the incident was the result of sabotage.
“There is of course the possibility of sending in a team to modify a
system in a way that would make it vulnerable, and then use a cyber
weapon at a later date as a trigger event,” said David Lindahl,
research engineer at the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
A new wave of cyber attacks could involve inserting hardware with
infected chips into the industrial process, possibly through an agent
or a duped employee, or penetrating diagnostic software used to gauge
uranium enrichment or other work, Lindahl said.
But some cyber security experts suspect Russian proxies could be
assisting Iran with its digital defenses, and possibly helped Tehran
trace the origins of Stuxnet.
“The part that we probably miscalculated on in Stuxnet was the
(possible) assistance of the Russians in attribution,” said James
Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies…..
The elaborate Stuxnet malware, which was reportedly introduced using a
thumb drive, contained malicious code that caused centrifuges used to
enrich uranium to spin out of control. The worm, meanwhile, sent back
signals to operators indicating the centrifuges were operating
normally.
After the malware was discovered in 2010, at least a thousand
centrifuges had to be removed and analysts estimate Tehran’s program
was set back by at least a year.
By pushing the boundaries of cyber warfare, the United States has left
itself open to retaliation. But US officials clearly view the risks
associated with digital strikes as dwarfed by the dangers of an
all-out war with Iran…..
http://technology.inquirer.net/13835/cyber-war-on-iran-has-only-just-begun

July 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties