Israeli-made Stuxnet, Crucial for Iranian Nuclear Program Setback
Stuxnet Virus (antena3.ro)
Rumors about the origin of the already famous worm Stuxnet, believed to be the cause for the delay of the Iranian nuclear program, point more and more precisely toward Israeli scientifical programs designed specifically for this purpose.
The New York Times documents a material about a program run at the Dimona complex, a place in the Negev desert, where Israel is believed to conduct a nuclear program, never officially acknowledged by the state.
Thus, American and Israeli scientists are said to have conducted at Dimona a secret plan, for the last two years, aimed at building up a way to undermine from the distance the nuclear program of Iran, and, if possible, to destroy it before the Islamic republic succeeds in building an atomic bomb.
Stuxnet (newsmild.com)
The scientists acquired centrifuges similar to the ones at Natanz, Iran, and tested the worm upon them. They say that in order to grasp the effectiveness of the virus, it has to be tested on machines similar to those in Iran, so that the way they work could be assessed.
Because it went through this kind of verification, Stuxnet proved effective, even though it only succeeded in crippling the program conducted by Tehran, not in bringing it down altogether.
Israel and the United States refuse to talk about their implication in
How Stuxnet Spreads (krebsonsecurity.com)
the creation of the virus, but the activity at Dimona and corresponding activity in the United States point to it, not to mention the statements made simultaneously by the outgoing head of Mossad Meir Dagan and U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton, according to which the program of Iran has been set back by seven years,which shows that they know what is going on in the secluded republic.
Hillary Clinton argued in favor of her assertion that the international sanctions imposed on Iran are beginning to pay off, while Meir Dagan told the Knesset, Israeli Parliament, that Iran will not be able to produce the weapon until 2015, which is a dramatic reverse compared to previous forecasts that were warning about the imminence of the threat.
President Ahmadinejad Inspecting Nuclear Devices (tgdaily.com)
Stuxnet is considered the most sophisticated computer virus ever created by mankind, and, more interesting, looks to have been built by more than one computer programmer.
It has two components, one of which makes the Iranian centrifuges spin out of control, while another part is deceiving the operators of the centrifuges into thinking that everything proceeds as scheduled while the machines are tearing themselves apart.
The virus began spreading in 2009, and is considered to have been grounded in a decision of Bush Administration to destroy the nuclear potential of Iran by means that do not involve military action.
Neither Israel and the United States nor Iran would accept to talk about the virus, the former refusing to acknowledge its design, the latter refusing to disclose that their system has been hit by such cyber weapon.
