Israel strikes Iran's nuclear facilities... with a computer virus

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An internet virus that has damaged computer systems in Iran was designed by foreign

governments to undermine the country’s nuclear ambitions, according to Tehran.

As western governments continued to analyse the origins and impact of the Stuxnet

malware, which has affected at least 30,000 IP addresses in Iran, an official

stressed the sophisticated nature of the virus.

“When we look at the capacity of this worm, we see that it’s not made up by an

ordinary hacker group,” said Hamid Alipour, deputy head of the Iran Information

Technology Company. “Rather it is designed by a series of organisations and countries.”

Mr Alipour did not name any country. However, some western intelligence experts

believe it could have been launched from Israel, which is thought to have an

advanced cyber-warfare capability.

Iran has played down reports that the virus has damaged its nuclear power station

at Bushehr. But western experts are keen to know whether the virus may have affected

Iran’s crucial uranium enrichment site at Natanz.

Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said that a

cyber attack against Bushehr made no sense as its civilian reactor was not a prime

concern of western governments.

However, the Natanz enrichment plant, which is at the heart of western concerns,

could be vulnerable to a cyber attack. “The Natanz centrifuge cascades are a very

sophisticated operation that require computer programming, so I would be surprised

if there was not a sophisticated set-up there that might be vulnerable,” he said.

It might take time before it became clear if Natanz was damaged, Mr Fitzpatrick said.

“There are so many problems at Natanz that if there were a computer bug issue it

might not be immediately obvious.”

US officials believe Iran’s nuclear programme has encountered significant technical

problems, slowing its rate of progress.

“The Iranians are at kind of a plateau at the moment because of their problems,” said

an administration official. “We can’t be complacent about it but we do have some time.”

Instead of forging ahead with its programme, Iran’s monthly production of low-enriched

uranium has been constant at about 100kg. Meanwhile, the last report from the

International Atomic Energy Agency showed another fall in the number of operational

centrifuges. Iran continues to use an old variant of these enrichment machines, failing

so far to move to a more efficient version.

“They are doing research and development on a new generation of centrifuges but I don’t

think they have a machine they can bank on yet,” said the official.

Iran has announced that it will build up to 10 new plants for uranium enrichment. So far,

however, no centrifuges have been moved into a previously secret facility at Qom. Nor

has any construction started elsewhere.

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[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

That will teach them to use Genuine Advantage® Microsoft Software.

[mawilson 2,133]

That will teach them to use Genuine Advantage® Microsoft Software.