WarSclerotic

What To Do About Iran? >> New University.

If your neighbor spent every day yelling at you over the picket fence about how he’s going to take over your house or destroy you if you don’t leave, would you feel comfortable if you saw his garage stuffed to the rafters with submachine guns and assault rifles?

“Oh, they’re just for hunting deer in the woods,” he says, and puts a bullet into the head of a paper human outline at the end of the garage. Okay, he’s obviously telling the truth because to tell a lie would be abhorrent and horrible, and no one would do that in the public eye. But when he’s not cleaning his M-16, he’s threatening and lambasting you over your fence. Clearly, you have an important decision to make before you wake up one morning with a gun barrel in your mouth.

Let’s make this clear; allowing Iran to obtain nuclear power on the condition that they don’t use it to make weapons is as good an idea as allowing John Wilkes Booth to bring a gun into Ford’s Theatre on the condition that he doesn’t use it to assassinate anyone.

With ever-constant surprises regarding Iran’s nuclear program – a previously undisclosed uranium enrichment plant here, a rocket test there – the threat of the theocracy’s hostile ambitions, coupled with the ability to create weapons of mass destruction, has put many countries on edge, both Western and Arab. People are now looking back to Israel’s 1981 bombing run on Iraq’s Osirak reactor – which affected the course of the Cold War on a drastic level – and a 2007 Israeli attack on an unfinished plant in Syria and wondering if they can be replicated in Iran.

Every country has a right to development for the sake of bettering the quality of life for its people and advancing its own scientific knowledge. Iran and its people are no different. The regime in control of Iran – the neighbor who yells at you over the fence while sharpening an axe in his garage – is different.

In the past few years, Western governments have utilized economic sanctions in the hopes of dissuading Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions to no avail. States in the U.S. have recently begun approving boycotts on companies engaged in trade with Iran. In the face of a complete lack of results, many people are now considering what it would mean to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This option is not only being considered in the Western world, but in some Arab countries as well. Several recent polls, such as the Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey and the 2009 Pechter poll have asked Arabs about their views on Iran’s nuclear program. The wide majority of the results revealed that most Arabs polled held unfavorable views of President Ahmadinejad and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. One-third of Saudis polled said they would approve of an American military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and a quarter expressed the same sentiment about an Israeli airstrike. Earlier this year in June, Saudi Arabia gave Israel free passage through its airspace should the need for an airstrike on Iran arise.

This all proves that the urgency sweeping the Western world about Iran’s nuclear program is not without reason. However, a military option is not something to be taken lightly. The problem with economic sanctions is that the Iranian regime only understands military force, as exemplified by its brutal and terrifying crackdown on the 2009 election protestors. In the current regime, it will always be the people who suffer before the government. The problem with a military strike is that Iran, ever paranoid and military-minded, has taken such an attack into consideration; unlike Iraq and Syria, Iran has at least 17 nuclear facilities scattered throughout the country, with its main facility at Natanz built underground in order to withstand Israeli bunker-busters. The operation would be significantly more costly in terms of money, politics and risk of life compared with runs on the single reactors in Iraq and Syria.

Assuming Israel would be the country to saddle up and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, here is how it would be likely to play out: using F-15 or F-16 fighter jets, Israeli Air Force pilots would need to fly 1,100 miles to reach Natanz. This includes 400 miles within Iran’s airspace before IAF pilots would even reach Natanz, running the almost-certain risk of being attacked by Iran’s 29 different Tor-M1 mobile missile defense systems (provided by Russia). Pilots assigned to other targets, like the reactor at Bushehr in the South, would have to travel farther. Such distance threatens the limits of an F-15/16’s capabilities, though they can reach larger distances by re-fueling in mid-air or using additional fuel tanks. The most direct routes are over Saudi Arabia or Iraq. While the former provides safe passage and the latter has no anti-aircraft capabilities of its own, a damaged Israeli fighter forced to land in either country would make for a diplomatic firestorm.

Should Israel run such an attack, Iranian retaliation could be expected to take the form of a missile launch that has the capability of reaching Israel, as well as U.S. military bases in the region. Iran may also choose to retaliate through Hezbollah, its puppet military in Lebanon. While largely incapable of directly striking Israel, Iran also has the influence to impact oil sales to Western nations. Retaliation against U.S. troops in Afghanistan and any remaining U.S. presence in Iraq is also likely.

The possibility of a military strike on Iran is not being taken lightly by the U.S. or Israel. Even hawkish Israelis are not too enthusiastic about such a choice; a military strike carries heavy ramifications not only in long-term Israel-Iran relations, but in the stability of the region as well. While the Jewish state – which has been the target of as many threats and racial slurs from Iran’s president as there are grains of sand on a beach – is willing to delay its decision to allow for the international community to try out more peaceful methods, the necessity for such a decision to be made grows larger as each day passes.

Aaron Elias is a fifth-year English major. He can be reached at eliasa@uci.edu.

US says military strike would unite a divided Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Defense Secretary Gates tells WSJ strike would only offer ‘short-term solution’ to Iranian nuclear program issue; says Khamenei ‘beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about impact of sanctions on economy’

Reuters

A military strike against Iran would unite the divided country and ensure Tehran’s unwavering commitment to pursuing nuclear weapons, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

Gates, in comments to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council, said it was important to use other means to convince Tehran against pursuing nuclear weapons and renewed concerns that military action would only delay — not prevent — it from obtaining such capabilities.

He told the council that military action would offer only a “short-term solution” to the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear program.

According to the US defense secretary, sanctions against Iran may be causing a rift between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We even have some evidence that Khamenei, now, (is) beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about the impact of the sanctions on the economy. And whether he’s getting the straight scoop in terms of how much trouble the economy really is in,” Gates said, renewing his position that sanctions were having an impact.

Western nations have accused Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, something Iran vehemently denies.

It has refused global calls to rein in its suspect nuclear enrichment program and has been slapped with a series of UN and international sanctions.

Meanwhile, Iran kicked off a five-day nationwide military drill on Tuesday to examine its air defense system, according to reports.

Dubbed “Defenders of the Sky 3,” the exercise simulates an attack on Iran’s borders and nuclear facilities. The drill is reportedly said to test Iran’s skill against Israel and the United States in the event that one or both of them decides to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

AFP contributed to the report

A War with Iran is Inevitable.

Iranian regime is led by Shiite fanatics that believe that the only way the mythical Twelfth Imam can return is for the earth to be in a state of complete chaos and anarchy

By Alan Caruba Tuesday, November 16, 2010

If the U.S. and allies had known that Nazi Germany would embark on the genocide of six million Jews in Europe, along with five million others that included gypsies, homosexuals, and political opponents, is there any doubt they would have taken preemptive measures to stop the Holocaust?

What we know about the Iranian regime is that it is led by Shiite fanatics that believe that the only way the mythical Twelfth Imam can return is for the earth to be in a state of complete chaos and anarchy. Almost from the beginning, following the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, the regime has engaged in an effort to achieve nuclear weapons. Their use against Israel is a certainty, but they would also be targeted against Europe.

Thus, when Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) recently called for war with Iran, I assumed he has some information I do not. Sen. Graham said, “I think we’re to the point now that you have to really neuter the regime’s ability to wage war against us and our allies.”

In the 1980s, Iran fought an eight-year war with Iraq. It ended in a stalemate, a million casualties, and the need to rebuild from scratch what was left of its military. Iran is located in one of the nastiest neighborhoods of planet Earth. It shares borders with Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan.

The Gulf States deeply distrust Iran’s nuclear and other hegemonic ambitions. The Saudis and the Egyptians recently conducted joint military maneuvers for that reason.

Internally, it faces a growing opposition from its mostly young citizens to the rule of the Supreme Ayatollah, Mamoud Ahmadinejad, and others who support the dictatorship that passes for a government there. Given time and covert assistance, one assumes they might prevail, but the real question is whether the world has the time?

Iran’s economy is in a state of collapse. As recently as November 9th there was a report of the arrest of four prominent Iranian student activists and others in anticipation of a government plan to phase out basic food and fuel subsidies. “The government is bracing for social unrest,” said one report.

If Iran’s leadership were rational, the last thing they need at this point is a war. They are not and their openly expressed hatred for Israel gives every indication of that.

As the primary source of funding for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza strip, Iran would seem to favor having its proxies take over Lebanon by force and to wage a new war on Israel. This would take some attention and pressure off of Iran as it works its will behind the scenes.

The Department of Defense and the CIA have war-gamed various plans against Iran over the years and the feedback was that neither liked the outcome because they always included the problem of an uncontrollable escalation.

As a point of reference, we put too few troops into Iraq in the 2003 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq regime and, while Baghdad quickly fell, the result became a long, unpopular war.

This raises the question of why, before leaving for his Asia trip on November 6, President Obama, according to Debka File, ordered the Pentagon “not just to beef up American and NATO military pressure on Iran, but to do so as conspicuously as possible.”

There are three aircraft carriers, four nuclear submarines, and marine assault units in the vicinity of Iranian shores as this is being written. This suggests that U.S. intelligence has picked up some disturbing signs or that the Obama administration simply wants to send a message to Iran that any trouble-making in the Middle East would be unwise.

Meanwhile, Sen. Graham called for “sinking the Iranian navy, destroying its air force, and delivering a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guards.” We can do that any time we want. What is the Senator not sharing with us that increases the urgency of such action now?

The problem Iran poses ultimately comes down to choking off the Straits of Hormuz through which flow millions of barrels of oil to the West. That would be a very destabilizing event and not permissible to the U.S., NATO nations, and others. If, however, Iran’s goal is to create world chaos, nuclear-tipped missiles would be the best way to achieve it.

As with so many geopolitical and military options, there are few good choices, but much of Iran’s bellicosity likely comes from its internal situation which, as we have seen, is an increasing threat to its regime. A show of force is a good idea. The use of it before Iran goes nuclear is even better.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

U.S. defense chief says Iran sanctions working, argues against military strike – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

As Iran prepares to defend nuclear sites, the U.S. Defense Secretary insists that economic sanctions are effectual.

By Reuters and DPA

Sanctions against Iran are biting hard and triggering divisions among its leadership, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday, as he argued against a military strike over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The Iran Air Force was not taking any chances, however, and on Tuesday began exercises designed to protect Iran’s nuclear sites from potential military strikes, Iranian state television reported.

	U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates addresses the 2010 meeting of the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, November 16, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

During the five-day-long exercises, the country’s latest aerial defense systems would be tested, the report said. Tehran said it was the biggest exercise of its kind it had ever staged.

Gates said he saw little choice, however, to pursuing a political strategy that includes sanctions and renewed his concerns that a military strike would only delay Iranian nuclear capabilities by two or three years.

He added that sanctions “have really bitten much harder than (Iranian leadership) anticipated,” and suggested Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was increasingly at odds with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We even have some evidence that Khamenei, now, (is) beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about the impact of the sanctions on the economy. And whether he’s getting the straight scoop in terms of how much trouble the economy really is in,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington.

The West believes that Iran aims to use its uranium enrichment program to build atomic weapons, which Iran denies. Both Israel and the United States have said all options remain on the table to deal with its nuclear ambitions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ratcheted up rhetoric last week by calling on the West to convince Iran that it would be willing to take military action to prevent Tehran from producing nuclear weapons. He said economic sanctions had so far failed to do the job.

Gates has publicly disagreed with Netanyahu about the need to put forward a military threat.

Although he acknowledged on Tuesday that Iranian leaders “are still intent on acquiring nuclear weapons,” he said military action was not a long-term answer.

“A military solution, as far as I’m concerned … it will bring together a divided nation. It will make them absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. And they will just go deeper and more covert,” Gates said.

“The only long-term solution in avoiding an Iranian nuclear weapons capability is for the Iranians to decide it’s not in their interest. Everything else is a short-term solution.”

The Iranian air force started a five-day military exercise on Tuesday meant to test Iran’s defenses against air strikes. Tehran said it was the biggest exercise of its kind it had ever staged.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis November 16, 2010, 7:15 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iron Dome – another year before it is operational

On October 28, a Hizballah war game demonstrated the ability of its special forces to overrun Lebanon in two hours. It took Israel 19 days to respond: Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi finally confirmed on Nov. 15 that the Shiite terrorists may seize power after the UN Tribunal indicts their leaders for the Hariri assassination. The general’s was dry – not a word about how Israel proposed to handle a violent hostile terrorist takeover of Beirut on Iran’s behalf and the grave strategic peril it presented Israel.

One of the first targets Iran’s surrogate plans to grab is Beirut International airport and harbor. Massive quantities of war materiel could then be delivered directly into Hizballah’s hand in Beirut instead going the roundabout route through Syria’s sea port at Tartous and Damascus airport as they do now.

So how will the IDF handle this brazen hostile act? Impose a belated blockade on Beirut and intercept Iranian freighters? Tehran has already made it clear that any party intercepting its shipping for searches would find itself at war with the Islamic Republic.
Will the Israeli Air force intercept Iranian air transports ferrying weapons and Revolutionary Guards fighters to sustain Hizballah’s war machine against Israel?

Again, If Israel never once, in the four years since UN Security Council 1701 banned the import of weapons for Hizballah, fired a single shot to impede the vast quantities of arms smuggled in from Sytia to Hizballah since then, why suddenly now?

Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak appear to be sunk in a state of suspended animation as attested to by three events in the last two days:

1. Both of them, backed by certain high-ranking military officers have made a big deal of the security incentives they say the Obama administration is willing to pledge in return for its second, 90-day moratorium. One of those incentives is another 20 F-35 stealth warplanes on top of the first twenty Israel has already purchased.

(The Palestinians have meanwhile dug their heels in against resuming talks claiming the US has given Israel too many benefits.)
The value of the warplanes is not in question, only their relevance to Israel’s military muscle in view of the fact that those planes are not scheduled for delivery before 2020 – that is in ten years’ time!

Does anyone know how many nuclear bombs Iran will have amassed since then or whether any will be deployed in Lebanon?

All that can be said for sure about the year 2010 is that Barack Obama will no longer be president of the USA, Netanyahu prime minister of Israel nor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president of Iran – even though as things stand today, the last of the three might yet make himself supreme ruler a lifelong position.

Therefore, what good are the US F-35 warplanes when today Israel which lives under active threats from Iran, Hizballah, Syria and Hamas?
2.  An Israeli intelligence officer, who opted to stay anonymous, confirmed Sunday, Nov. 14, that Hamas had obtained surface missiles (Improved Fajr-5,made in Iran) with a range of 80 kilometers and therefore capable of exploding in the heart of Tel Aviv. He blamed Egypt for not doing enough to thwart the smuggling of illicit weapons through Sinai into the Gaza strip, but neglected to mention what Israel had done to thwart their passage into the Strip and deployment.

This approach is typical of the mindset afflicting Israel’s government, military and intelligence decision-makers these days. They seem to think that they need only to sound the alarm about threats and Washington or Cairo will do the rest. Israel’s enemies are left in peace to build up their strength and magnify the menace they pose without interference.

3. Monday, Nov. 15, Colonel Zvika Haimovitch of the Israeli air defense corps told a government-sponsored aerospace conference in Jerusalem that within two years, or 2015 at the latest, Israel’s skies will be hermetically protected against enemy missiles. In the next two to five years “we will turn this vision into reality,” he said.  Israel’s multi-layered air defense network will be fully deployed by 2015, “combining short-range rocket interceptors with kamikaze satellites that blow up ballistic missiles in space.”

He mentioned the Iron Dome developed by Israel for shooting down rockets with ranges of 5-70 kilometers as one of those tiers, David’s Sling for intercepting more powerful rockets and the Arrow III for boosting a satellite beyond the Earth’s atmosphere to collide with an incoming missile.
debkafile notes that the same day, American military sources disclosed that the IDF had only lately halted the introduction of the first Iron Dome battery to operational use because the battalion that was to have operated it had not finished training. Those sources mentioned a delay of at least one year.

Col. Haimovitch would have done better to use his public platform to address real events such as Iran’s five-day countrywide air defense exercise which started Tuesday, Nov. 16, on driving off US and Israel warplanes and missiles venturing into its airspace. However, Israel’s top brass are taking the lead from its political leaders, preferring to talk in the abstract about future threats when real perils lurk just behind Israel’s door.

Stuxnet study suggests Iran enrichment aim: experts | Reuters.

LONDON (Reuters) – New research on the Stuxnet worm shows definitively it was made to target the kind of equipment used in uranium enrichment, deepening suspicions its aim is to sabotage Tehran’s suspected nuclear arms program, experts say.

Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm of unknown origin that attacks command modules for industrial equipment, is described by some experts as a first-of-its-kind guided cyber missile.

Thanks to the worm’s sophistication, uncertainty has lingered about its origins and exact aim since German company Siemens first learned in July that the malware was attacking its widely-used industrial control systems.

Some analysts point to unexplained technical problems that have cut the number of working centrifuges in Iran‘s uranium enrichment program as evidence that its nuclear ambitions may have suffered sabotage.

Diplomats and security sources say Western governments and Israel view sabotage as one way of slowing Iran’s nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making nuclear weapons but Tehran insists is for peaceful energy purposes.

New research by cyber security company Symantec contains evidence that apparently supports the enrichment sabotage theory, pointing to tell-tale signs in the way Stxunet’s changes the behavior of equipment known as frequency converter drives.

A frequency converter drive is a power supply that can alter the frequency of the output, which controls the speed of a motor. The higher the frequency, the higher the motor’s speed.

Stuxnet “sabotages” the systems the drives control, a paper posted online by Symantec researcher Eric Chien said.

“We’ve connected a critical piece of the puzzle.”

VERY SIGNIFICANT

Stuxnet’s approach is to monitor the frequency of these drives and only attack ones that run between 807 Hertz (Hz) and 1210 Hz — very high speeds used only in a limited set of applications, including gas centrifuges.

Once operation at those frequencies occurs for a period of time, Stuxnet begins modifying the behavior of the frequency converter drives and in effect sabotages it, Symantec said.

Ivanka Barzashka, a research associate at the Federation of American Scientists, said in an email that if Symantec’s findings were true they were very significant.

“If Symantec’s analysis is true, then Stuxnet likely aimed to destroy Iran’s gas centrifuges, which could produce enriched uranium for both nuclear fuel and nuclear bombs.”

Leading German cyber expert Ralph Langner, who says he reached the same conclusion independently of Symnatc, agreed that a gas centrifuge was the likely target.

“This finding strongly points to a controller for a module in a gas centrifuge cascade,” he blogged. “One reasonable goal for the attack could be to destroy the centrifuge rotor by vibration, which causes the centrifuge to explode.

Enrichment is a method of boosting the proportion of fissile isotope found in uranium ore to make it usable as nuclear fuel or the explosive core of nuclear weapons. A gas centrifuge is a machine that separates the fissionable U-235 isotope from the much more prevalent U-238 by spinning at supersonic speeds.

For story on cyber warfare threat: (Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna and Mark Heinrich in London)

Iranians begin 5-day, nationwide air defense drill.

Photo by: AP  

By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/16/2010 12:48

Military spokesman says goal of first nationwide defense exercise held by Islamic Regime is to “boost the self-esteem of Iranian air defense forces.”

The Iranian military began a five-day nationwide military drill dubbed “Defenders of the Sky” on Tuesday, state-run IRNA reported.

“Army Defense Forces, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), police and Basij have joined the military exercise,” drill spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hamid Arjangi told IRNA.

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“The military maneuver is staged across the country unlike last year’s,” he said.

“Aircrafts of the enemy dubbed ‘Orange Forces’ were identified and intercepted by our radar systems and then the order to confront the enemy was given.”

Low-, mid- and high-altitude missiles were being used in the drill, he added.

“Boosting the self-confidence and self-esteem of Iranian air defense forces is one of the goals of the operations,” he said, adding, “new, modernized air defense systems, long-range missile as well as radar systems built indigenously over last year, are being used in the drill.”

The first phase of the “Defenders of the Sky” exercise will wrap up on Wednesday, when the second stage will begin.

Clues Suggest Stuxnet Virus Was Built for Subtle Nuclear Sabotage | Threat Level | Wired.com.

New and important evidence found in the sophisticated “Stuxnet” malware targeting industrial control systems provides strong hints that the code was designed to sabotage nuclear plants, and that it employs a subtle sabotage strategy that involves briefly speeding up and slowing down physical machinery at a plant over a span of weeks.

“It indicates that [Stuxnet’s creators] wanted to get on the system and not be discovered and stay there for a long time and change the process subtly, but not break it,” says Liam O Murchu, researcher with Symantec Security Response, which published the new information in an updated paper (.pdf) on Friday.

The Stuxnet worm was discovered in June in Iran, and has infected more than 100,000 computer systems worldwide. At first blush it appeared to be a standard, if unusually sophisticated, Windows virus designed to steal data, but experts quickly determined it contained targeted code designed to attack Siemens Simatic WinCC SCADA systems. SCADA systems, short for “supervisory control and data acquisition,” are control systems that manage pipelines, nuclear plants, and various utility and manufacturing equipment.

Researchers determined that Stuxnet was designed to intercept commands sent from the SCADA system to control a certain function at a facility, but until Symantec’s latest research it was not known what function was being targeted for sabotage. Symantec still has not determined what specific facility or type of facility Stuxnet targeted, but the new information lends weight to speculation that Stuxnet was targeting the Bushehr or Natanz nuclear facilities in Iran as a means to sabotage Iran’s nascent nuclear program.

According to Symantec, Stuxnet targets specific frequency converter drives — power supplies that are used to control the speed of a device, such as a motor. The malware intercepts commands sent to the drives from the Siemens SCADA software, and replaces them with malicious commands to control the speed of a device, varying it wildly, but intermittently.

The malware, however, doesn’t just sabotage any frequency converter. It inventories a plant’s network and only springs to life if the plant has at least 33 frequency converter drives made by Fararo Paya in Teheran, Iran, or by the Finland-based Vacon.

Even more specifically, Stuxnet targets only frequency drives from these two companies that are running at high speeds – between 807Hz and 1210Hz. Such high speeds are used only for select applications. Symantec is careful not to say definitively that Stuxnet was targeting a nuclear facility, but notes that “frequency converter drives that output over 600Hz are regulated for export in the United States by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as they can be used for uranium enrichment.”

“There’s only a limited number of circumstances where you would want something to spin that quickly -– such as in uranium enrichment,” said O Murchu. “I imagine there are not too many countries outside of Iran that are using an Iranian device. I can’t imagine any facility in the U.S. using an Iranian device,” he added.

The malware appears to have begun infecting systems in January 2009. In July of that year, the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks posted an announcement saying that an anonymous source had disclosed that a “serious” nuclear incident had recently occurred at Natanz. Information published by the Federation of American Scientists in the United States indicates that something may indeed have occurred to Iran’s nuclear program. Statistics from 2009 show that the number of enriched centrifuges operational in Iran mysteriously declined from about 4,700 to about 3,900 beginning around the time the nuclear incident WikiLeaks mentioned would have occurred.

Researchers who have spent months reverse-engineering the Stuxnet code say its level of sophistication suggests that a well-resourced nation-state is behind the attack. It was initially speculated that Stuxnet could cause a real-world explosion at a plant, but Symantec’s latest report makes it appear that the code was designed for subtle sabotage. Additionally, the worm’s pinpoint targeting indicates the malware writers had a specific facility or facilities in mind for their attack, and have extensive knowledge of the system they were targeting.

The worm was publicly exposed after VirusBlokAda, an obscure Belarusian security company, found it on computers belonging to a customer in Iran — the country where the majority of the infections occurred.

German researcher Ralph Langner was the first to suggest that the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran was the Stuxnet target. Frank Rieger, chief technology officer at Berlin security firm GSMK, believes it’s more likely that the target in Iran was a nuclear facility in Natanz. The Bushehr reactor is designed to develop non-weapons-grade atomic energy, while the Natanz facility, a centrifuge plant, is designed to enrich uranium and presents a greater risk for producing nuclear weapons.

The new information released by Symantec last week supports this speculation.

As Symantec points out in its paper, frequency converter drives are used to control the speed of another device -– for example, a motor at a manufacturing facility or power plant. Increase the frequency, and the motor increases in speed. In the case of Stuxnet, the malware is searching for a process module made by Profibus and Profinet International that is communicating with at least 33 frequency converter drives made by either the Iranian firm or the Finnish firm.

Stuxnet is very specific about what it does once it finds its target facility. If the number of drives from the Iranian firm exceeds the number from the Finnish firm, Stuxnet unleashes one sequence of events. If the Finnish drives outnumber the Iranian ones, a different sequence is initiated.

Once Stuxnet determines it’s infected the targeted system or systems, it begins intercepting commands to the frequency drives, altering their operation.

“Stuxnet changes the output frequency for short periods of time to 1410Hz and then to 2Hz and then to 1064Hz,” writes Symantec’s Eric Chien on the company’s blog. “Modification of the output frequency essentially sabotages the automation system from operating properly. Other parameter changes may also cause unexpected effects.”

“That’s another indicator that the amount of applications where this would be applicable are very limited,” O Murchu says. “You would need a process running continuously for more than a month for this code to be able to get the desired effect. Using nuclear enrichment as an example, the centrifuges need to spin at a precise speed for long periods of time in order to extract the pure uranium. If those centrifuges stop to spin at that high speed, then it can disrupt the process of isolating the heavier isotopes in those centrifuges . . . and the final grade of uranium you would get out would be a lower quality.”

O Murchu said that there is a long wait time between different stages of malicious processes initiated by the code — in some cases more than three weeks — indicating that the attackers were interested in sticking around undetected on the target system, rather than blowing something up in a manner that would get them noticed.

“It wanted to lie there and wait and continuously change how a process worked over a long period of time to change the end results,” O Murchu said.

Stuxnet was designed to hide itself from detection so that even if administrators at a targeted facility noticed that something in the facility’s process had changed, they wouldn’t be able to see Stuxnet on their system intercepting and altering commands. Or at least they wouldn’t have seen this, if information about Stuxnet hadn’t been released last July.

Photo: A worker rides a bike in front of the reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, just outside the southern city of Bushehr, Iran, Oct. 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Mehr News Agency, Majid Asgaripour)

Computer worm may have targeted Iran’s nuclear program.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 15, 2010; 6:30 PM

The Stuxnet computer worm that infiltrated industrial systems in Iran this fall may have been designed specifically to attack the country’s nuclear program, potentially crippling centrifuges used to enrich uranium gas, according to new research.

In a blog post late last week, a Stuxnet researcher at Symantec wrote that the software firm had concluded that the worm targeted industrial systems with high frequency “converter drives” from two specific vendors, including one in Iran.

Independently, Langner Communications of Germany, a systems security firm, also announced over the weekend that another part of the worm’s attack code was configured in a way to target a control system for steam turbines used in power plants, such as those installed at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Langner also confirmed that the worm appeared to attack key components of centrifuges.

Ivanka Barzashka, a research associate at the Federation of American Scientists, said the Symantec findings “if true, are very significant.”

In an e-mail, Barzashka wrote that the targeted frequency range, from 807 megahertz to 1210 megahertz, “is consistent with the operational frequencies of gas centrifuges used for uranium enrichment.”

“Centrifuges are delicate pieces of equipment,” she said. “There is a huge incentive for pushing the machines to operate at the maximum speed allowed by the materials they are made of. In addition, before they reach their maximum operating speeds, centrifuges have to traverse certain ‘critical frequencies’ at which they encounter resonance and can fly apart.”

“Rigging the speed control is a very clever way of causing the machines to fly apart,” she added. “If Symantec’s analysis is true, then Stuxnet likely aimed to destroy Iran’s gas centrifuges, which could produce enriched uranium for both nuclear fuel and nuclear bombs.”

After the discovery of the Stuxnet virus, analysts said it was likely the creation of a sophisticated entity, namely a government agency. Speculation has centered on the United States or Israel as the most likely originators of the worm.

Checkpoint Washington – New research confirms Iran’s nuclear program was target of Stuxnet worm.

By Glenn Kessler  | November 15, 2010; 1:30 PM ET