Stuxnet Virus 'Warheads" Could Knock Out Iran's Utility Systems

A secret report by the International Atomic Energy Agency leaked on Tuesday said that Iran had been forced to suspend activity on enriching uranium, because of “technical problems” that have surfaced in thousands of centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear reactor.

The centrifuges, which are used in the enrichment project, were taken out of service, with the entire enrichment project there on hold, the report said – indicating, observers said, that Iran's problems with the particularly malignant Stuxnet computer virus were not yet over.

A weekend article in The New York Times quoted German security expert Ralph Langer as saying that the Stuxnet virus, which he identified in September as the worm that has caused major problems at Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, was still alive and well, despite Iranian denials. But instead of just disabling centrifuges, the virus can also “confuse” frequency convertors that control all sorts of mechanical and industrial processes, Langer wrote - giving Stuxnet not one, but two "warheads" that could cause severe damage to infrastructure, including water, gas and electric systems.

The virus is also far more virulent than had been thought, Langer said; it was designed to attack control systems manufactured by Germany's Siemens, which are in use in infrastructure throughout the world. The Times article quoted a U.S. security expert who said that “computer security organizations were not adequately conveying the potential for serious industrial sabotage that Stuxnet foretells,” implying that many of the world's power plants, water facilities, and other basic infrastructure that are dependent on automated control systems, are at serious risk.

But while that is possible, says Israeli security expert Rafael Sutnick, there seemed to be little likelihood that Stuxnet would “leak out” to other facilities, based on what we know about it so far.

“Whoever unleashed it on Iran seems to have a tight rein on it,” Sutnick said. “So far, Iran is the only place we've seen the virus active, indicating that it was a specific target and did not reach the country's computer network by chance or accident. Whoever designed this knew what they were doing, and the experts who have analyzed the code say that years of work went into designing it. So I don't see it disabling infrastructure randomly.”                 
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