Malware Hits Computers at Iran Nuke Plant

Iran's official news agency says a complex computer worm has affected the personal computers of staff at the country's first nuclear power plant weeks before the facility is to go online.

The IRNA news agency is quoting the head of the Bushehr nuclear plant, Mahmoud Jafari, as saying a team is inspecting several computers to remove the malware, but that it "has not caused any damage to major systems of the plant."

Experts in Germany discovered the worm in July, and it has since shown up in a number of attacks - primarily in Iran, Indonesia, India and the U.S.

The computer worm, dubbed Stuxnet, can take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants.

Iran's nuclear agency met last week to discuss ways of fighting the worm.

[n3td3v]

Western media sponsored by CIA trying to put Iran spin on this, but the worm targets U.S, Germany, Indonesia, India as well.

[jfb100]

If this were a US military cyber-engagement, then it would be mostly likely the NSA. They are the ones with the trained hackers (ref CBS & PBS domestic spying reports at AT&T and Verizon). However, I suspect the NSA would not waste their time on this since the reported worm runs only on MS Windows (and not UNIX). The NSA would have, instead, created software that acquires data without being detected. If this was the NSA then it was ham-handed at best.

[oldat45]

This is not news. Few powerplants outside the Firstt World are internet connected, or firewalled with virus software. Workers routinely bring in USB sticks, load pictures, etc, play games on the machines that run the system - generally Windows-based PCs. A large number iof the workers with access to the PCs don't have one at home, or it;s the first PC they've been able to access on a regular basis.

This was common in Iraq, as well.

How best to conceptualize it? Imagine dropping a pile of loaded machine guns in the monkey exhibit at your local zoo.

[jfb100]

This software security exploit is associated only with the Microsoft Windows OS, which is notoriously susceptible to malicious software.

For example: the US Navy, and other creators of large Enterprise software based systems, have abandoned MS Windows for UNIX and Linux OS. Ron Redman, (a deputy technical director with the Aegis Program Executive Office), is quoted as saying "Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT. If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application." (ref concerning USS Yorktown catastrophic failure).

From an engineering perspective: the ultimate fix is to migrate to UNIX. From a political perspective: it appears that their software engineering is fairly primitive which may be consistent of other aspects of their engineering as well.

[caeric]

It's interesting that it has been reported in a number of places, the U.S. included, but nothing is mentioned about whether it has shown up in China.

[skeezix06]

Wasn't this called terrorism when things like this were directed at us? Just a thought.

[travelers345]

Yes. But only when nature drops 'survival of the fittest' for 'cake and ice cream of all', will mankind too change it's ways.

[ffoulkes-2009]

It WAS directed at us...and a bunch of other countries BEFORE it hit in Iran.

[wdh3007]

It will be business as usual until they have their own Chernoboyl incident then business will be over and so will Iran.

[astormysea]

Something more drastic is needed to stop them...this is merely a small glitch !!!!!!!!!