WarSclerotic

IOL Technology – Is this a cyber war on Iran?.

Computers can go wrong, and everyone is used to it. But that’s at home. We assume that the machines controlling the infrastructure that makes everything tick – power stations, chemical works, water purification plants – have rock-solid defences to deal with crashes or virus attacks by malicious strangers.

Now a new online sabotage has reached its zenith with a self-replicating “worm” that started on a single USB drive and spread through industrial computer systems worldwide.

It is so sophisticated that analysts believe it can only be part of a state-sponsored attack, the Stuxnet worm – or “malware” – is the first programming creation designed to cause world damage. If experts are right, it could herald a new chapter in the history of cyber warfare.

The worm, designed to spy on and reprogram industrial systems running a specific piece of industrial control software produced by German company Siemens, has been detected on computers in Indonesia, India and Pakistan, but more significantly Iran; 60 percent of current infections have taken place there, with 30 000 internet-connected computers affected so far, including machines at the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, due to open in the next few weeks.

Hamid Alipour, deputy head of Iran’s Information Technology Company, warned that nearly four months after it was identified, “new versions of the virus are spreading”. Despite intense scrutiny of the code by malware experts, they have been unable to discover what the intended target of Stuxnet may be. But Alan Bentley, international vice-president at security firm Lumension, is in no doubt that it’s “the most refined piece of malware ever discovered”.

The motive is certainly not, as is usual with such attacks, financial gain or simple tomfoolery; Stuxnet is intelligent enough to target specific kinds of industrial computer systems, then if it finds what it’s looking for, seek new orders to disrupt them. Two potential targets of the worm may have been nuclear facilities within Iran at Bushehr and Natanz. A document on Wikileaks suggests that a nuclear accident may have occurred at Natanz in July last year, followed by the unexplained resignation of the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation.

But if that was Stuxnet’s intended target, it has continued to spread regardless. Melissa Hathaway, a former US national cybersecurity co-ordinator, said: “We have about 90 days to fix this before some hacker begins using it. Security software firm Symantec estimated that Stuxnet would have taken specialists around six months to compile – a resource not within the means of the average internet criminal.

One of the engineers working on unpicking the code was surprised with the sophistication of the project, adding: “This is what nation states build if their only other option would be to go to war.”

Iran’s controversial nuclear ambitions throw up any number of likely suspects, but a number of fingers have pointed at Israel, and in particular its intelligence corps, Unit 8200.

Last summer, Reuters reported on Israel’s cyber-warfare project, with a recently retired Israeli security cabinet member stating that Iran’s computer networks were very vulnerable.

Scott Borg, director of the US cyber consequences unit, added that “a contaminated USB stick would be enough” to commandeer the controls of sensitive sites such as uranium enrichment plants.

The ramifications of this incident are considerable. Not only are there worries about the effects of Stuxnet upon computers that are critical to people’s everyday lives, but there’s also concern over the poor level of computer security being used by those operating such machines. Stuxnet made its way into computer systems via vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Windows operating system, before taking control of the Siemens software via its default password.

The fact that something as mundane as a password issue could have such a critical effect has also caused consternation among commentators and analysts – as has the unnerving announcement from Siemens to its customers not to change that password lest it “impact plant operations”. Siemens has offered a free download on its website to remove Stuxnet; while this is a common procedure for many viruses, it’s alarming that a nuclear facility would have to do such a thing to ensure its stability.

Stuxnet has kicked off an additional debate over exactly how prevalent this kind of cyber-attack may already be. This is far from the first incident where governments have found themselves under attack via computer.

Iran doubles enriched uranium stockpile despite sanctions.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
10/20/2010 19:24

Iranian nuclear chief announces Teheran now has 30kg enriched to 20 percent; Turkish deputy PM says sanctions won’t harm business between 2 countries, overall trade expected to increase.

TEHERAN — Iran announced Wednesday it has almost doubled its stockpile of uranium that the country began enriching to higher levels earlier this year in defiance of UN demands to halt the program.

Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran now has 30 kilograms, or about 66 pounds, of uranium enriched to 20 percent — almost twice the amount reported in June.

The 20 percent level is enough to produce fuel for a medical research reactor but far below the more than 90 percent enriched uranium required to build fissile material for nuclear warheads.

However, US officials have expressed concern Iran may be moving closer to the ability to reach weapons-grade level.

One country that is not too concerned with Iran’s nuclear program is Turkey. On Wednesday Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan told reporters in Washington that he expects overall Turkish trade with Iran to increase, despite hesitations by Turkish banks due to US and EU sanctions.

Babacan said that the Turkish government has let Turkish banks make their own decisions in the face of sanctions aimed at isolating Iran from the global financial sector. The sanctions target individuals and institutions deemed to be helping Iran develop its nuclear and missile programs.

“Turkish banks are hesitating,” he said. “Some of them are doing business with Iran, some are pausing to decide what to do.”

Babacan said that the sanctions were hitting the Iranian economy but doubted that they were making Iran rethink its nuclear program. Turkey has opposed sanctions as ineffective and damaging to the Turkish economy, since they target an important neighbor. Babacan stressed the importance for Turkey of trade with Iran, specially in the energy sector. He pointed out the volume of Turkish exports to Iran is about the same level as exports to the United States.

Babacan expects that trade with Iran, excluding oil and gas, will grow at a moderate pace. His boss, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said he would like to triple trade volumes in the next five years while still respecting the limits set by United Nations sanctions. That push, along with Turkey’s vote against sanctions in the U.N. Security Council has fed tensions with the West.

But with a booming economy, Turkey has growing energy needs particularly for natural gas. It has said it plans to boost domestic consumption of natural gas from Iran and to export Iranian gas to Europe.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report October 20, 2010, 5:15 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Iran Persian Gulf US carriers

USS Abraham Lincoln now opposite Iran

The United States has posted a second aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Persian Gulf and northern Arabian Sea. The announcement came from the Pentagon Tuesday, Oct. 19, two days after the vessel put into port at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. debkafile‘s sources note that this is the first time in two years that Washington had deployed two aircraft carriers at same time – not just one – in waters opposite Iran and Afghanistan.
Facing Iran at the moment therefore is the USS Harry S. Truman which has four squadrons of Hornet and Super Hornet fighter-bombers plus Squadron 116 of early warning, surveillance and command craft, Squadron 131 of electronic warfare craft, two more squadrons of helicopters and one of transports.

The Abraham Lincoln’s arrival has raised the number of US fighter-bombers in Iran’s neighborhood to 120.

The carrier was accompanied by the guided missile cruiser USS Cape St. George.

The Pentagon announcement was careful to avoid mentioning Iran: US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approved the presence of a second carrier… to provide surge support for coalition forces in Afghanistan “and to support existing maritime security operations.”
But the significance of two massive American naval-aerial strike forces opposite Iranian shores was not lost on Tehran, our sources report. Wednesday, Oct. 20, Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami, Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, came out with this statement: “The enemies of Iran should know the Islamic establishment’s red lines and not trespass them.”