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Engineer: Stuxnet Specifically Targeted Iranian Nuclear Program

Originally published by "dbarker" on 2010-11-21 14:55:00Z

Iran Worm Can Deal Double Blow to Nuclear Program: An engineer in Germany has determined that Stuxnet was designed specifically to cripple the Iranian nuclear program.

The malicious program, known as Stuxnet, is designed to disable both Iranian centrifuges used to enrich uranium and steam turbines at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is scheduled to begin operation next year […]

He’s not the only one:

His analysis adds further detail to a report by researchers at the Symantec Corporation, an American computer security company, which concluded that the software code was intended to induce fluctuations in the rotational speed of motors, by taking over a power device known as a frequency converter.

We discussed this previously.  This lends credence to the idea that Stuxnet is the first official, all-out cyber attack from one nation state against another.  I can’t wait until the details finally leak – from the sounds of it, this was an incredible piece of work.