Claims that Israel is about to militarily hit Iran I always felt were bogus. I think assassinations, sabotage, and cyber warfare will be the way to go until Obama is gone.
by Richard Spencer
Anti-virus experts last month identified a virus called “Duqu” that they said shared properties with the now famous “Stuxnet” worm, which spread across the world but is thought to have been successfully targeted at the nuclear programme’s centrifuges, the devices that enrich uranium to create nuclear fuel.
It was not clear on Monday from the Iranian statement whether Duqu had also struck nuclear facilities, but it was the first admission of damage.
“We are in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus,” Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran’s civil defence programme, said. “The final report which says which organisations the virus has spread to and what its impacts are has not been completed yet.
“All the organisations and centres that could be susceptible to being contaminated are being controlled.”
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Although Mossad and other western intelligence agencies makes no comment on sabotage operations against Iran or any other country, there is little doubt that they are an important component of attempts to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.
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William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain was not yet “calling for, or advocating, military action.” But he added: “At the same time, we are saying that all options are on the table.”
Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, on the other hand said harsh sanctions were unavoidable in the absence of Iranian co-operation with the IAEA but said he would not consider military intervention.
Even the Israeli cabinet is split, with the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Ehud Barak said to be in favour, but a majority against.
The Stuxnet virus altered the speed at which the enriching centrifuges spun until they were out of control. It was so sophisticated that the experts who discovered it said it could only have been the work of an advanced, probably national, sabotage programme.
It has been widely reported that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was responsible, with help from American and British counterparts.
According to computer virus experts, duqu operates differently, though using some of the same code to infiltrate computers, sending back further information to its handlers rather than breaking down systems.
First spotted in September by academics in Budapest, it was spread through an infected Microsoft Word document. It has also struck in India, France and Ukraine.
The computer security firm Symantec, which has been the lead investigator on Stuxnet and Duqu, said the new virus seemed aimed at gaining the user remote access to computer systems.
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“The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility. Thus, Duqu is essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack.”
If the virus is a Mossad creation, Israeli leaders may have another reason to congratulate themselves. While not claiming responsibility, they have done nothing to hide their glee at a series of “problems” faced by Iran’s weapons and nuclear programmes.
An explosion at a missile base on Saturday killed 17 members of the Revolutionary Guard, including the brigadier-general in charge of missile development, Hassan Moghaddam. The incident’s similarity to an explosion at a major base housing long-range Shahab-3 missiles in October of last year triggered speculation both were the work of Mossad.
“I don’t know the extent of the explosion,” Ehud Barak, the defence minister, told military radio on Sunday night. “But it would be desirable if they multiply.”
Read the rest: Iran claims defence computer systems hit by another ‘supervirus’
Tags: Richard Spencer
