Iran's nuclear program is still in chaos despite its leaders' adamant claim that they have contained the computer worm that attacked their facilities, cybersecurity experts in the United States and Europe say.
The American and European experts say their security websites, which deal with the computer worm known as Stuxnet, continue to be swamped with traffic from Tehran and other places in the Islamic Republic, an indication that the worm continues to infect the computers at Iran's two nuclear sites.
The Stuxnet worm, named after initials found in its code, is the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever created. Examination of the worm shows it was a cybermissile designed to penetrate advanced security systems. It was equipped with a warhead that targeted and took over the controls of the centrifuge systems at Iran’s uranium processing center in Natanz, and it had a second warhead that targeted the massive turbine at the nuclear reactor in Bashehr. Stuxnet was designed to take over the control systems and evade detection, and it apparently was very successful.
Last week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after months of denials, admitted that the worm had penetrated Iran's nuclear sites, but he said it was detected and controlled.
The second part of that claim, experts say, doesn’t ring true. Eric Byres, a computer expert who has studied the worm, said his site was hit with a surge in traffic from Iran, meaning that efforts to get the two nuclear plants to function normally have failed.
The web traffic, he says, shows Iran still hasn’t come to grips with the complexity of the malware that appears to be still infecting the systems at both Bashehr and Natanz. “The effort has been stunning," Byres said.
"Two years ago American users on my site outnumbered Iranians by 100 to 1. Today we are close to a majority of Iranian users.” He said that while there may be some individual computer owners from Iran looking for information about the virus, it was unlikely that they were responsible for the vast majority of the inquiries because the worm targeted only the two nuclear sites and did no damage to the thousands of other computers it infiltrated.
At one of the larger American web companies offering advice on how to eliminate the worm, traffic from Iran has swamped that of its largest user: the United States. “Our traffic from Iran has really spiked”...
Ralph Langner, the German expert who was among the first to study and raise alarms about Stuxnet, said he was not surprised by the development. “The Iranians don’t have the depth of knowledge to handle the worm or understand its complexity,” he said, raising the possibility that they may never succeed in eliminating it.
“Here is their problem. They should throw out every personal computer involved with the nuclear program and start over, but they can’t do that. Moreover, they are completely dependent on outside companies for the construction and maintenance of their nuclear facilities. They should throw out their computers as well. But they can’t,“ he explained. “They will just continually re-infect themselves.”
“With the best of expertise and equipment it would take another year for the plants to function normally again because it is so hard to get the worm out. It even hides in the back-up systems. But they can’t do it,” he said.
And Iran’s anti-worm effort may have had another setback. In Tehran, men on motorcycles attacked two leading nuclear scientists on their way to work. Using magnetic bombs, the motorcyclists pulled alongside their cars and attached the devices. One scientist was wounded and the other killed. Confirmed reports say that the murdered scientist was in charge of dealing with the Stuxnet virus at the nuclear plants...
AND Israel's Plan B -which may never be needed now- to bomb Iranian facilities into dust is all ready to go... bunker busters and all.
The IDF can handle the job without any US military help...
According to documents made public by the suicidally-wreckless WikiLeaks, Israel told US politicians 18 mos ago that 2010 was to be the "critical year" for attacking Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program. They've been warning us for a half decade that time is running out, and now-leaked diplomatic cables from Ehud Barak had set a deadline for military action. The files also betrayed the fact that Israel already has taken delivery of the GBU-28 bunker-busting bomb, and that efforts where made to conceal this from the public:
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, told American congressmen in June 2009 there was a window of "between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable". After that, Barak said – in a striking admission recorded in a confidential state department document – "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage".
Barak's comments were one of many occasions in the last five years when Israeli leaders and officials have hammered home the message to the US that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose an existential threat to Israel...
Israel saw 2010 as a pivotal year. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
In a discussion of the upcoming delivery of GBU-28 bunker-busting bombs to Israel it was noted that the transfer "should be handled quietly to avoid allegations that the US government was helping Israel prepare for a strike against Iran".
Secret cables originating from the US embassy in Tel Aviv record the head of the Mossad secret service, Meir Dagan – along with senior military men and diplomats – repeatedly explaining to US visitors Israel's concerns and strategy for confronting Iran, including a readiness to take military action.
By late 2009 the Mossad's view was that "there is no reason to believe Iran will do anything but use negotiations to stall for time so that by 2010-2011, Iran will have the technological capability to build a nuclear weapon – essentially reducing the question of weaponising to a political decision".
Dagan told a US politician in March 2005: "Iran has decided to go nuclear and nothing will stop it." Israel and the US sometimes differed in their analysis, the Mossad chief conceded, but the facts themselves were "not in dispute". -The Guardian- -WikiLeaks-
Perhaps Israel will feel their hand is now forced by the WikiLeaks disclosures... now that the Iranians know they won't do it later. One hope is that the "weaponized" Stuxnet virus already has them a year or so behind schedule in Iran. That ongoing cyber-attack seems to have done some pretty serious damage, and in the most amazing ways...
Stuxnet acted like computer cruise missile rather than a computer virus. The computers it targeted were not connected to the Internet, so it had to be secretly introduced into the Iranian system and hop through a set of unconnected computers, growing and adapting to security measures and other changes until it reached a computer that could bring it into the nuclear facility.
And when it reached its target, the worm would have to secretly manipulate the computers running the Iranian nuclear program until its damage was done and then finally it would have to destroy itself without leaving a trace. That's exactly what happened both at Natanz, which houses the centrifuges Iran used for processing uranium into nuclear fuel, and at Bushehr, Iran's nuclear power plant...
This went on for over a year, the worms causing havoc in the Iranian Nuclear Program. And as it did, the worm grew and adapted throughout the system. As new worms entered the system, they would "get together" with the old ones adapt and become increasingly sophisticated...
But the day would still be drawing close where they are an existential threat to Israel... one that must be confronted... this also from the WikiLeaks dump:
The United States has told France that Israel could strike Iran without US military support but the operation might not be successful, according to a leaked document published on the WikiLeaks website.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave his assessment at a meeting on February 8 in Paris with former French defense minister Herve Morin, according to a secret summary of the session that was posted on WikiLeaks, part of a massive document dump of classified cables. -Breitbart-
The Israeli Defense Forces also possess advanced Heron drones capable of reaching Iran... impressive piece of kit -here-
More at Reaganite Republican
