Stuxnet|| IRAN Nuclear Centre????

Stuxnet|| IRAN Nuclear Centre????

What is Stuxnet?

Stuxnet is a family of cleverly written malware worms that primarily target SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquistition) control systems for large infrastructures such as industrial power plants. The original Stuxnet worm was first discovered in 2010, and numerous variants of Stuxnet have been identified since then, with most targeting organizations in the country of Iran. 

Stuxnet initially spreads via infected removable drives, particularly USB flash drives, before utilizing additional methods to infect other computers on private networks.  The original Stuxnet worm was designed to exploit four zero-day attack vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Some computer security experts believe that an attack as sophisticated as Stuxnet could have only been conducted with "nation-state support," although there haven’t been any confirmations to date as to which country or countries might have been involved in developing Stuxnet.

Stuxnet Effect on Iran

Over fifteen Iranian facilities were attacked and infiltrated by the Stuxnet worm. It is believed that this attack was initiated by a random worker's USB drive. One of the affected industrial facilities was the Natanz nuclear facility. [1] The fist signs that an issue existed in the nuclear facility's computer system in 2010. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the Natanz facility and observed that a strange number of uranium enriching centrifuges were breaking. [3] The cause of these failures was unknown at the time. Later in 2010, Iran technicians contracted computer security specialists in Belarus to examine their computer systems. [3] This security firm eventually discovered multiple malicious files on the Iranian computer systems. It has subsequently revealed that these malicious files were the Stuxnet worm. [3] Although Iran has not released specific details regarding the effects of the attack, it is currently estimated that the Stuxnet worm destroyed 984 uranium enriching centrifuges. By current estimations this constituded a 30% decrease in enrichment efficiency