Iran: Computer Malware Sabotaged Uranium Centrifuges

[n2doc]

By Kim Zetter November 29, 2010 | 4:18 pm | Categories: Cybersecurity


In what appears to be the first confirmation that the Stuxnet malware hit Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that malicious computer code launched by “enemies” of the state had sabotaged centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program.

The surprise announcement at a press conference coincided with news that two of Iran’s top nuclear scientists had been ambushed Monday by assassins who killed one scientist and seriously injured the other.

Iran had previously acknowledged that Stuxnet infected the personal computers of workers at its Bushehr nuclear power plant but had insisted that the malware had not infected work systems involved in the nuclear program, and that the program itself had not been harmed. Officials did not mention then whether any computers at its nuclear facility at Natanz had been infected.

Natanz is engaged in enriching uranium that could be used to manufacture weapons. It was therefore believed by various computer security experts to have been Stuxnet’s likely target.

Ahmadinejad did not mention Natanz by name at Monday’s press conference but admitted that malware had “succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges.”

more

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/stuxnet-sabotage-centrifuges/

[Toucano]

1. Stuxnet only affects computers that run malware, sometimes referred to

as Windows. :P

[Jim Sagle]

2. Good.