Stuxnet-led cyberwar against Iran's nuclear program started by U.S. and Israel

The cyber-attack against Iran’s nuclear program, discovered in 2012 and known as Stuxnet, was originated from U.S., current and former U.S. officials confirmed on Friday after a New York Times report. 

Stuxnet-led cyberwar against Iran's nuclear program started by U.S. and Israel

The cyber-attack destroyed nearly 1,000 of Iran's 6,000 centrifuges, fast-spinning machines that enrich uranium. The National Security Agency (NSA) developed the Stuxnet virus with the assistance of Israeli experts.

According to details; a secret cyber-war, instead of launching a traditional military attack, against Iran's nuclear program was started with the collaboration of U.S. and Israeli experts after the orders of U.S. President Barack Obama and the step was taken to slow down Iran's evident progress toward building nuclear weapons without launching a traditional military attack, U.S. officials revealed on the condition of anonymity.

The Stuxnet virus was developed initially during the George W. Bush administration, under the code name as Olympic Games, and was aimed toward damaging Iran's nuclear potential slowly while generating perplexity among Iranian scientists about the cause of disasters at a nuclear plant.

The use of the cyber-weapon, malware designed to penetrate and harm computer systems, was supposed to force the Iranians assume that their nuclear scientists were incompetent of running uranium enrichment facility, the officials said further.

"The idea was to string it out as long as possible," one participant said. "If you had wholesale destruction right away, then they generally can figure out what happened, and it doesn't look like incompetence."

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Report Tags: Stuxnet, Iran’s Nuclear Program, National Security Agency, Barack Obama, Cyberwar against Iran, Cyber-attack on Iran,

SOURCE:

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_20764164/u-s-officals-stuxnet-cyberattack-iran-was-work

Anonymous take down several websites, including FBI and DoJ, reacting to Megaupload crackdown

WASHINGTON (Jan. 20) – Reacting to the Thursday’s federal raid on Megaupload.com - one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites - on account of infringing piracy laws, hackers’ group Anonymous have broken the websites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA, Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Music Group.

Anonymous take down several websites, including FBI, reacting to Megaupload crackdown

“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,” Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells Russia Today on Thursday afternoon. 

Only hours after the crackdown on Megaupload the Department of Justice and Universal Music Group sites went down.

As reported earlier, founder of Megaupload, Kim Schmitz aka Kimble and Kim Dotcom, and four others linked to the website were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the world.

As per RT reports; less than an hour after the DoJ and Universal sites were hacked, the website for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), went offline as well. Later on government's Copyright.gov site and the site for Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI) - the licensing organization that represents some of the biggest names in music – were also went offline.

The latest of sites to fall is FBI.gov, which finally broke at around 7:40 pm EST Thursday evening.

Stuxnet: The New Era of Cyber Warfare Has Begun ...

The world is on the brink of war. But instead of bombs and explosions, chaos will come through blackouts in the electrical system and breakdown in communications. The cause for all this: a powerful computer virus.

The concept of cyber warfare, attacks on the infrastructure of the state by means of computers, it sounds like a movie script, but governments, and intelligence agencies are concerned. “The threat is real and worthy of attention,” said last week Iain Lobban, director of GCHQ, the British electronic spy agency.

The fear of a cyberwar gained momentum with the discovery of Stuxnet, malware worm that infected thousands of machines in Iran, Indonesia and India.

What is noteworthy about the plague was that it had targeted control systems used in industrial processes, such as power plants. It operated at least three vulnerabilities in Windows such as “zero day”, as yet undiscovered by developers, an unprecedented number of failures for the same pest. It also had two safety approvals that the black market can cost $ 500,000.

Given the complexity of the pest, experts believe it has been designed by the government of a country. Companies that have analyzed the code Stuxnet say it did not seek financial gain or theft. It would have been created and the target would be to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program.

Tehran has said it had arrested “spies” and accuses the West.