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A highly sophisticated computer worm that has spread through Iran, Indonesia and India was built to destroy operations at one target: possibly Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Iran is going nuclear over a malicious computer worm targeting the country's atomic energy facilities. The Stuxnet worm has targeted not only Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant -- scheduled to go online in a matter of weeks -- but also the personal computers of the government's nuclear officials, the country's national news agency reports. Iran has not yet publically pointed blame to the West, but several Internet security experts publicly stated that they suspect that a hostile government such as the U.S. or Israel may be behind the cyberattack. "This would not be easy for a normal group to put together,"...

A powerful computer virus is attacking Iran's nuclear program, and experts suggest that the secondary effects of the cyber attack may in fact be more damaging than the infection itself...

Iran admitted it was under full-scale cyber terror attack. The official IRNA news agency quoted Hamid Alipour, deputy head of Iran's government Information Technology Company, as saying that the Stuxnet computer worm "is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerized industrial equipment." Stuxnet was no normal worm, he said: "The attack is still ongoing and new versions of this virus are spreading." Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Hossein Salami declared his force had all the defensive structures for fighting a long-term war against "the biggest and most powerful enemies" and was ready to defend the revolution with more advanced weapons than...

Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them. That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind...

Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them. That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind...

Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them. That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind...

"A computer virus dubbed the world's "first cyber superweapon" by experts and which may have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities has found a new target -- China. The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc in China, infecting millions of computers around the country, state media reported this week..."

Industrial control systems made by German company Siemens, which are widely used in Iran, were the targets of the worm, indicating that its creators had advanced knowledge of these types of systems far beyond the scope of a most information technology experts. The code is so specialized that it targets only two models of Siemens programmable logic controllers, the S7 300 and S7 400, and will execute only if it finds very specific parameters within the machine. These controllers are usually associated with the management of oil pipeline systems, electrical power grids, and nuclear power plants

The computer worm Stuxnet broke out of the tech underworld and into the mass media this week. It’s an amazing story: Stuxnet has infected roughly 45,000 computers. Sixty percent of these machines happen to be in Iran. Which is odd. What is odder still is that Stuxnet is designed specifically to attack a computer system using software from Siemens which controls industrial facilities such as factories, oil refineries, and oh, by the way, nuclear power plants. As you might imagine, Stuxnet raises big, interesting geo-strategic questions. Did a state design it as an attack on the Iranian nuclear program? Was...

Tehran this week secretly appealed to a number of computer security experts in West and East Europe with offers of handsome fees for consultations on ways to exorcize the Stuxnet worm spreading havoc through the computer networks and administrative software of its most important industrial complexes and military command centers. debkafile's intelligence and Iranian sources report Iran turned for outside help after local computer experts failed to remove the destructive virus. None of the foreign experts has so far come forward because Tehran refuses to provide precise information on the sensitive centers and systems under attack and give the visiting...

A complex computer worm has infected the personal computers of staff at Iran's first nuclear power station, the official IRNA news agency reported. However, the operating system at the Bushehr plant - due to go online in a few weeks - has not been harmed, project manager Mahmoud Jafari said. The Stuxnet worm is capable of seizing control of industrial plants. Some Western experts say its complexity suggests it could only have been created by a "nation state"... The fact that Stuxnet has now been detected on the personal computers of staff will have no impact on plans to make...

>While the boors and bores of the mainstream media continue to focus on the “crucial matters” of our time such as Stephen Colbert’s tedious appearance before Congress and whether a Delaware senatorial candidate spent two days as a witch in high school, news of real importance is breaking all around us. I am not just referring to the cataclysmic testimony by Chris Coates in front of the Civil Rights Commission on Friday, but to a yet bigger story with a potentially huge implications for geo-politics — the recent (and possibly ongoing) cyber attack on Iranian computers that may have temporarily...

Iran has arrested "nuclear spies" on suspicion of being behind cyber attacks on its nuclear programme, Iranian state media report. Press TV says "a number" of people have been apprehended as part of an operation by Iran to counter "massive enemy schemes". The report comes after the complex worm Stuxnet infected staff computers at Iran's first nuclear power station at Bushehr. No details of the arrests were given. Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi was cited by Press TV as saying his ministry was capable of countering any threats. "We are always facing destructive activities by these [espionage] services, and, of...

TEHRAN — Iran's intelligence minister said on Saturday authorities had arrested several "nuclear spies" who were working to derail Tehran's nuclear programme through cyberspace. Without saying how many people were arrested or when, Heydar Moslehi was quoted on state television's website as saying Iran had "prevented the enemies' destructive activity." His remarks came against the backdrop of reports that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking havoc on computerised industrial equipment in Iran and had already infected 30,000 IP addresses. But Moslehi said intelligence agents had discovered the "destructive activities of the arrogance (Western powers) in cyberspace, and different ways...

SAN FRANCISCO: Computer security experts are studying a scary new cyber weapon: a software smart bomb that may have been crafted to find and sabotage a nuclear facility in Iran. Malicious software, or malware, dubbed "Stuxnet" is able to recognise a specific facility's control network and then destroy it, according to German computer security researcher Ralph Langner. "Welcome to cyber war," Langner said in a post at his website. "This is sabotage." Langner has been analyzing Stuxnet since it was discovered in June and said the code had a technology fingerprint of the control system it was seeking and would...

(Sept. 30) -- The intrigue surrounding the mysterious, highly sophisticated computer worm Stuxnet got a little more Dan Brownish today with the revelation that there may be hidden messages embedded in the malware's code. The New York Times reported this morning that one of the files in the worm was called "Myrtus," which may be a reference to the Old Testament Book of Esther, in which Jews thwart a Persian plot against them. Along with mysterious Myrtus were two numbers that might be additional clues to who is behind the worm. Or, as the Times points out, they could mean...

Symantec security researcher Liam O Murchu (photo above) says he found the “05091979" date in the Stuxnet code, a possible link to the May 9, 1979 execution of Jewish Iranian businessman and philantropist Habib Elghanian. (snip) We’ve heard murmurings of biblical references and public confirmation that the Iran’s Buescher nuclear reactor was the main target. Now comes O Murchu with this tittilating disclosure suggesting a direct link to Israel. However, security experts are cautioning against reading too much into anything deliberately left in the code by the Stuxnet authors because, at this level, there could be all kinds of decoys...