Articles

Stuxnet malware is 'weapon' out to destroy ... Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant?

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

Is cyber-warfare here?
Lights could be turned off, streets turned to gridlock by targeting traffic light control systems, satellites blinded and warships left dead in the water…

We may never know for sure whether the Stuxnet computer worm was really a state cyber strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but hard-to-trace computer attacks look set to be a feature of 21st-century warfare.

Western experts say the worm’s sophistication — and the fact that some 60 percent of computers infected looked to be in Iran — pointed to a government-backed attack. Some speculated Iran’s first nuclear power station, at Bushehr, may have been targeted, perhaps by Israel.