The New York Times has a big scoop this morning based on leaks of “highly classified” information from unnamed sources:
From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program….
The United States government only recently acknowledged developing cyberweapons, and it has never admitted using them. There have been reports of one-time attacks against personal computers used by members of Al Qaeda, and of contemplated attacks against the computers that run air defense systems, including during the NATO-led air attack on Libya last year. But Olympic Games was of an entirely different type and sophistication.
It appears to be the first time the United States has repeatedly used cyberweapons to cripple another country’s infrastructure, achieving, with computer code, what until then could be accomplished only by bombing a country or sending in agents to plant explosives. The code itself is 50 times as big as the typical computer worm, Carey Nachenberg, a vice president of Symantec, one of the many groups that have dissected the code, said at a symposium at Stanford University in April. Those forensic investigations into the inner workings of the code, while picking apart how it worked, came to no conclusions about who was responsible.
The cyber warfare program, codenamed “Olympic Games,” started under President George W. Bush and accelerated under President Obama, according to the Times. The effort was at least somewhat successful in disrupting Iran’s nuclear program, according to the Times.
But not everything went as planned. The Times article reveals that U.S. and Israeli programmers created the notorious Stuxnet worm as part of the Olympic Games effort, then lost control of it.
Computer security analysts have long suspected that the U.S. and Israel might have been involved in the creation of Stuxnet. From Wikipedia:
Different variants of Stuxnet targeted five Iranian organizations, with the probable target widely suspected to be uranium enrichment infrastructure in Iran; Symantec noted in August 2010 that 60% of the infected computers worldwide were in Iran. Siemens stated on 29 November that the worm has not caused any damage to its customers, but the Iran nuclear program, which uses embargoed Siemens equipment procured secretly, has been damaged by Stuxnet. Kaspersky Lab concluded that the sophisticated attack could only have been conducted “with nation-state support”. This was further supported by the F-Secure’s chief researcher Mikko Hyppönen who commented in a Stuxnet FAQ, “That’s what it would look like, yes”. It has been speculated that Israel and the United States may have been involved. [Emphasis added.]
Not surprisingly, the Times report is getting a lot of attention on Twitter. Everyone agrees it is a blockbuster:
NYTimes' blockbuster story on Pres Obama ordering cyberattacks against Iran aimed at its nuke program: http://t.co/KjW9weCf #cyber #Iran
— Ken Bazinet (@bazmaniandevil) June 1, 2012
The news that the US and Israel developed Stuxnet is huge!
— Ryan Bigg (@ryanbigg) June 1, 2012
Some are unhappy about the leaks of classified information:
https://twitter.com/simon_klingert/status/208489930626842626
Wow. Amazing story in NYT today about cyberwar vs Iran. Amazing details. But whoever the sources were, they should be fired.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 1, 2012
Other Twitter reaction:
Obama wanted to get credit for Stuxnet, as that makes him look tough against Iran. And he needs that as Presidential elections are coming.
— @mikko (@mikko) June 1, 2012
@guardian @JonathanHaynes has the guardian thought about doing a factcheck on the legality of state sponsored cyberwar/creating virues?
— ?️?ネモ?️? (@nemof) June 1, 2012
Great detail in that Stuxnet piece: U.S. built a near-replica of Iran's Natanz facility using Libya's centrifuges (given to the U.S. 2003).
— Jeremy Singer-Vine (@jsvine) June 1, 2012
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