Worm wars: Was Israel behind Iran cyber attack?

[Lankan Ranger]

Worm wars: Was Israel behind Iran cyber attack?

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 of command module for industrial equipment.

Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel's intelligence service. In several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.

There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran's most heavily guarded project.

Ralph Langner, a German computer security consultant who was the first independent expert to assert that the malware had been "weaponized" and designed to attack the Iranian centrifuge array, argues that the Stuxnet worm could have been brought into the nuclear complex by Russian contractors.

It was Langner who first noted that Myrtus is an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively.

Worm wars: Was Israel behind Iran cyber attack? - The Times of India

 

[Gabbar]

Report: U.S.-Israel Tested Worm Linked to Iran Atom Woes

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.
The newspaper cited unidentified intelligence and military experts familiar with Dimona who said Israel had spun centrifuges virtually identical to those at Iran's Natanz facility, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium.

"To check out the worm, you have to know the machines," an American expert on nuclear intelligence told the newspaper. "The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out."

Western leaders suspect Iran's nuclear program is a cover to build atomic weapons, but Tehran says it is aimed only at producing electricity.

Iran's centrifuges have been plagued by breakdowns since a rapid expansion of enrichment in 2007 and 2008, and security experts have speculated its nuclear program may have been targeted in a state-backed attack using Stuxnet.

In November, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that malicious software had created "problems" in some of Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges, although he said the problems had been resolved.

The Times said the worm was the most sophisticated cyber-weapon ever deployed and appeared to have been the biggest factor in setting back Iran's nuclear march. Its sources said it caused the centrifuges to spin wildly out of control and that a fifth of them had been wiped out.

It added it was not clear the attacks were over and that some experts believed the Stuxnet code contained the seeds for more versions and assaults.

The retiring chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, said recently that Iran's nuclear program had been set back and that Tehran would not be able to build an atomic bomb until at least 2015. U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have not disputed Dagan's view.

Neither Clinton nor Dagan mentioned Stuxnet or any other cyber-warfare possibly used against the Iranian program.

Israel has voiced alarm over a nuclear Iran and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said only the threat of military action will prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

Israel itself is widely believed to have built more than 200 atomic warheads at its Dimona reactor but it maintains an official policy of "ambiguity" over whether it is a nuclear power.

Any delays in Iran's enrichment campaign could buy more time for efforts to find a diplomatic solution to its stand-off with six world powers over the nature of its nuclear activities.

U.S. and Israeli officials refused to comment officially on the worm, the newspaper said.

 

[Soumitra]

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel's never-acknowledged nuclear arms programme, 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.

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 programme that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran's ability to make its first nuclear arms.

"To check out the worm, you have to know the machines ," said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. "The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out."

Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian programme. In recent days, the retiring chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, and secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton separately announced that they believed Iran's efforts had been set back by several years. Clinton cited American-led sanctions, which have hurt Iran's ability to buy components and do business around the world.

The gruff Dagan, whose organization has been accused by Iran of being behind the deaths of several Iranian scientists, told the Israeli Knesset in recent days that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015. That represented a sharp reversal from Israel's long-held argument that Iran was on the cusp of success.

The biggest single factor in putting time on the nuclear clock appears to be Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed. In interviews over the past three months in the United States and Europe, experts who have picked apart the computer worm describe it as far more complex — and ingenious — than anything they had imagined when it began circulating around the world, unexplained, in mid-2009.

'Mysteries remain, chief among them, exactly who constructed a computer worm that appears to have several authors. But the digital trail is littered with intriguing bits of evidence. In 2008 Siemens cooperated with one of the United States' premier national laboratories, in Idaho, to identify the vulnerabilities of computer controllers that the company sells to operate industrial machinery around the world.

Read more: Israel, US created worm that sabotaged Iran N-programme - The Times of India Israel, US created worm that sabotaged Iran N-programme - The Times of India