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When the Conficker computer “worm” was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cyber-security experts didn’t know what to make of it. It infiltrated millions of computers around the globe. It constantly checks in with its unknown creators. It uses an encryption code so sophisticated that only a very few people could have deployed it. For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting … The first surprising...

Argus One airship, U.S. military drone Drones and satellites dominate the U.S. military's surveillance arsenal, but fleets of unmanned airships could soon join in keeping an eye on battlefields. One robotic airship contender, the modular Argus One, has upcoming flight demonstrations scheduled at a U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Test Site that hosted nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War. The Argus One's design resembles a segmented sky worm made of connecting modules, and has the flexibility to quickly change its flight path as it slinks through the sky. It can also carry 30 pounds of surveillance sensors or...

When first discovered in 2010, the Stuxnet computer worm posed a baffling puzzle. Beyond its unusually high level of sophistication loomed a more troubling mystery: its purpose. Ralph Langner and team helped crack the code that revealed this digital warhead's final target -- and its covert origins. In a fascinating look inside cyber-forensics

Greenlit by Dubya, accelerated by Obama. Or at least, that’s what the cyborg time travelers who brought the worm back from the future would have you believe.The evidence is only circumstantial, but … there’s an awful lot of it. Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability...

Iran dismisses reports on cyber virus on nuclear power plant22:02, January 18, 2011 A spokesman of Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) dismissed reports about negative impacts of Stuxnet worm on Iran's nuclear facilities, local satellite Press TV reported on Tuesday. Hamid Khadem Qaemi, rejected the report of Daily Telegraph, alleging that Stuxnet computer virus has had a negative impact on the country's nuclear facilities. Khadem Qaemi said Tuesday that the Stuxnet worm has failed to influence the progressing activities of Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran. "The Iranian atomic energy organization's security experts vigilantly identified the virus about one...

Stuxnet Worm Was Weapon, Report SaysBy Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Jan 17, 2011 11:45 am The Stuxnet worm that disrupted Iran's ability to enrich uranium into bomb-grade nuclear fuel was jointly created by Israel and the U.S., the New York Times said Saturday. Citing confidential sources, the U.S. newspaper claimed that Israel's covert nuclear facility at Dimona was used to test the worm's effectiveness on centrifuges like the ones Iran employs at its Natanz complex, which has been plagued by technical problems. **SNIP** Langner, who has spent months pulling the worm apart, said earlier this week that Stuxnet was a natural...

The New York Times reported rather conclusively on Saturday that the super-advanced computer virus that has at least partially crippled Iran’s nuclear program was developed and tested by Israel, with American involvement. Known as Stuxnet, the virus was first identified “in the wild” about two years ago. About one year ago, it infected the computers that control the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz in central Iran. By all accounts, Stuxnet has to date managed to knock out 984 centrifuges and has, according to Israeli officials, set back Iran’s nuclear program by a good three-to-four years. According to the report, the...

Russia warns of ‘Iranian Chernobyl'By Con Coughlin 5:23PM GMT 16 Jan 2011 Russian nuclear scientists are providing technical assistance to Iran's attempts activate the country's first nuclear power plant at the Gulf port. But they have raised serious concerns about the extensive damage caused to the plant's computer systems by the mysterious Stuxnet virus, which was discovered last year and is widely believed to have been the result of a sophisticated joint US-Israeli cyber attack. According to Western intelligence reports, Russian scientists warned the Kremlin that they could be facing "another Chernobyl" if they were forced to comply with Iran's...

In the New York Times story today that details information on the Stuxnet computer worm that ended up destroying 984 Iranian unranium centrifuges, an interesting “item” pops out. Not immediately, not in the New York Times. But about half way through the story we find out that President Bush got the Stuxnet started in 2008 with Israel. He even managed to get the cooperation of Germany, Britain and the Saudis. Not bad for someone the world supposedly hated. Then, near the end of the piece, we find out that we got a lot of material from Libya after it gave...

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal. Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own.

WASHINGTON -- Israel has tested a computer worm believed to have sabotaged Iran's nuclear centrifuges and slowed its ability to develop an atomic weapon, The New York Times reported Saturday. In what the Times described as a joint Israeli-U.S. effort to undermine Iran's nuclear ambitions, it said the tests of the destructive Stuxnet worm had occurred over the past two years at the heavily guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert.

Report: Israel used centrifuges identical to those in Iran to test out worm that set Teheran's nuclear program years back; virus was authorized by Bush administration, rather than allow an Israeli attack. Israel tested the Stuxnet virus in Dimona, according to a Sunday report by The New York Times. Israel reportedly has centrifuges that are identical to those at the Iranian nuclear site in Natanz, which were used to test the Stuxnet computer worm. In 2008, the Times reported, German company Siemens cooperated with the Idaho National Laboratory, allowing it to identify problems in the comany's computer controllers, which are...

I recently wrote a white paper entitled “Dragons, Tigers, Pearls, and Yellowcake” in which I proposed four alternative scenarios for the Stuxnet worm other than the commonly held assumption that it was Israel or the U.S. targeting Iran’s Bushehr or Natanz facilities. During the course of my research for that paper, I uncovered a connection between two of the key players in the Stuxnet drama: Vacon, the Finnish manufacturer of one of two frequency converter drives targeted by this malware; and RealTek, who’s digital certificate was stolen and used to smooth the way for the worm to be loaded onto...

Jimmy Carter Vs. Guinea Worm: Sudan Is Last BattleJimmy Carter Racing Guinea Worm To Its Death; Remote And Wild Sudan Disease's Last Stronghold Dec. 26, 2010 (AP) ABUYONG, Sudan (AP) - Lily pads and purple flowers dot one corner of the watering hole. Bright green algae covers another. Two women collect water in plastic jugs while a cattle herder bathes nearby. Samuel Makoy is not interested in the bucolic scenery, though. He has an epidemic to quash. Makoy points out to the women the fingernail-length worm-like creatures whose tails flick back and forth. Then a pond-side health lesson begins on...

World Exclusive from debkafile's intelligence sources: Prof. Majid Shahriari, who died when his car was attacked in North Tehran Monday, Nov. 29, headed the team Iran established for combating the Stuxnet virus rampaging through its nuclear and military networks. His wife was injured. The scientist's death deals a major blow to Iran's herculean efforts to purge its nuclear and military control systems of the destructive worm since it went on the offensive six months ago. Only this month, Stuxnet shut down nuclear enrichment at Natanz for six days from Nov. 16-22 and curtailed an important air defense exercise.

I know, I know — you already know the basics about Stuxnet. No matter. So do I, yet this is the most gripping news feature I’ve read this week, to the point where I started mentally storyboarding the inevitable Hollywood spy movie that’s going to be made about it before I was halfway through. Starring Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg as leaders of an elite team of pasty beta-male hackers, overseeing the cyberwarfare equivalent of the Manhattan Project. Title: “The Nerds Who Saved the World.”Kidding aside, take five minutes to read it all. Nothing else that I’ve come across better...

Despite Iranian claims in October that their nuclear systems were cleansed of the Stuxnet virus, Iranian sources confirm that the invasive malworm is still making trouble. It shut down uranium enrichment at Natanz for a week from Nov. 16 to 22 over breakdowns caused by mysterious power fluctuations in the operation of the centrifuge machines enriching uranium at Natanz. The shutdown was reported by the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano to the IAEA board in Vienna on Tuesday, Nov. 23. Rapid changes in the spinning speed of the thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium to weapons-grade can...

In the 20th century, this would have been a job for James Bond. The mission: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists in the clutches of an evil master are secretly building a weapon that can destroy the world. Then render that weapon harmless and escape undetected. But in the 21st century, Bond doesn't get the call. Instead, the job is handled by a suave and very sophisticated secret computer worm, a jumble of code called Stuxnet, which in the last year has not only crippled Iran's nuclear program but has caused a major rethinking of computer...

The German computer security expert who first reported that the Stuxnet worm was designed to attack targets in Iran said the virus specifically attacked the country's nuclear program, in a report posted Friday. In his analysis, Ralph Langner said Stuxnet contained two distinct "digital warheads," specifically designed to attack military targets: Uranium enrichment plants and the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Langner said that the portion of the worm that targeted Uranium enrichment plants manipulated the speeds of mechanical parts in the enrichment process, which would ultimately "result in cracking the rotor, thereby destroying the centrifuge." He said the strategic importance...

Amid the mass of published analysis of the Stuxnet virus, Iran's most obvious vulnerability to cyber-war has drawn little comment: much of the Islamic Republic runs on pirated software. The programmers who apparently cracked Siemens' industrial control code to plant malware in Iran's nuclear facilities needed a high degree of sophistication. Most Iranian computers, though, run on stolen software obtained from public servers sponsored by the Iranian government. It would require far less effort to bring about a virtual shutdown of computation in Iran, and the collapse of the Iranian economy. The information technology apocalypse that the West feared on...