Iran: Country under attack by second computer virus

Excerpt:

TEHRAN —An Iranian military official revealed on Monday that the country had been attacked by a new computer virus apparently aimed at nuclear facilities, an acknowledgment that seemed to suggest a broader campaign by foreign saboteurs to undermine Iran’s atomic energy program.

The new computer worm has been dubbed “Stars” by the Iranians and described as an “espionage virus,” although few details were made public. In the same announcement, the military also confirmed continuing problems with an earlier virus, “Stuxnet,” which began wreaking havoc on Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility in 2009.

“The Stars virus has been presented to the laboratory but is still being investigated,” said Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads the Passive Defense Organization, which counters sabotage.

A report by the group said the new virus mimics government computer files and is difficult to destroy in its early stages. “No definite and final conclusions have been reached,” Jalali said in a report posted Monday on his organization’s Web site, paydarymelli.ir.

The statement follows recent official acknowledgments of the damage wrought by Stuxnet, which infected several nuclear facilities and industrial sites and is believed to have destroyed more than a tenth of the centrifuges Iran uses to make enriched uranium.

A military official this month blamed U.S. and Israeli spy agencies for planting the computer worm, although officials in both countries have declined to comment on either of the reported cyber attacks. A U.S. official familiar with clandestine operations said the Iranian reports are being monitored with high interest.

Iran worked frantically last year to replace more than 1,000 Stuxnet-damaged centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, and its scientists boasted of making significant strides to overcome the setback. Iran also has notified U.N. nuclear officials of plans to install hundreds of more advanced centrifuges with a dramatically higher production rate and presumably more resistance to sabotage.

Yet the report released on Monday acknowledged that the Stuxnet virus is still not under complete control. “These viruses have a shelf life and can reappear and continue their activity in another form,” Jalali said.

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