Stuxnet worm rampaging through Iran: IT official

TEHRAN (AFP) – The Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerised industrial equipment in Iran where about 30,000 IP addresses have already been infected, IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

“The attack is still ongoing and new versions of this virus are spreading,” Hamid Alipour, deputy head of Iran’s Information Technology Company, was quoted as saying by IRNA, Iran’s official news agency.



The hackers, who enjoyed “huge investments” from a series of foreign countries or organisations, designed the worm to exploit five different security vulnerabilities, Alipour said while insisting that Stuxnet was not a “normal” worm.

He said his company had begun the cleanup process at Iran’s “sensitive centres and organisations,” the report said.

Analysts say Stuxnet may have been designed to target Iran’s nuclear facilities. But Iranian officials have denied the Islamic republic’s first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among the addresses penetrated by the worm.

“This virus has not caused any damage to the main systems of the Bushehr power plant,” Bushehr project manager Mahmoud Jafari said on Sunday.

He, however, added the worm had infected some “personal computers of the plant’s personnel.”


“Although the main objective of the Stuxnet virus is to destroy industrial systems, its threat to home computer users is serious,” Alipour said.

The worm is able to recognise a specific facility’s control network and then destroy it, according to German computer security researcher Ralph Langner, who has been analysing the malicious software.



Tehran denies the allegation and has pressed on with its enrichment programme — the most controversial aspect of its nuclear activities — despite four sets of UN Security Council sanctions.

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10 Replies to “Stuxnet worm rampaging through Iran: IT official”

  1. this sounds like a fantastic tool to ham string the death cultists. a continuous stream of worms to riddle their systems and jihadi plans with holes.

  2. The thinking is that only a rich Nation or a rich private group could afford to write this worm. This is probably right, and the list of possible suspects is short, however it should include most if not all Western European nations and some in Eastern Europe.

  3. This is good news. However, the future for Inbred Iran is pretty grim in any case and I honestly believe that part of the reason is that they do need the technology of nuclear power in order to combat the power outages that will occur in the future caused by not enough oil to run their aging power stations. Hence the need to get some kuffar to teach them how to build a nuclear power station or just do it for them and they can then claim the credit for it as is their usual boasting pattern. Beats me why the much smarter pakistanis do not give a helping hand to the Iranians. Maybe it is a sunni and shiite thing.

  4. arabconqueredpersian They aren’t going to run out of oil or natural gas for the better part of a Century or longer, it would be cheaper and less confrontational for them to ask for help in building new gas fired power plants. Natural gas needs no refining and they could divert some from export to internal consumption with no problem. This would also be saver for the Iranians since an accident at a gas fired plant would not allow radioactive fallout to escape. Sorry but the only reason they have any need for nuclear power is to provide fissile material for nuclear weapons. And your statement that need someone to teach them how to build a nuclear plant doesn’t set will either, if they need teaching to build the plant they aren’t competent to run the plant. I use to work for a business that supplied construction material to power plants, I have been in several that were under construction, nuclear, gas and coal fired. The nuclear plants are a lot more complicated to run then they are to build. Gas fired would make more sense for an oil producing nation like Iran, the technology is simpler and the safety precautions are a lot simpler.

  5. To run a nuclear power plant is indeed complex. However, as in all middle eastern countries the builders and the maintenance crew are foreign. The Russians will take the contract to help run and maintain the plants. As for running out of oil that is a certainty within the next twenty years! Iran has already peaked. A person know as Hubbert charted oil production for a oil producing wells and found that the production life of such wells was bell shaped. The shape has since become know as the Hubbert peak. The Iran government knows that its oil is passed the Hubbert peak. It needs the new source of energy. The idea that the Iranians like to pass out is that they are awash with oil. Not true. That is just the normal empty boasting of Iranians and typical of them. According to Kate Mcenzie of the Financial Times oil capacity for Iran has fallen from about 4.2m barrels/day in 2005 to about 3.8m or 3.9m b/d today. Financial Times May 24 20010. The trend will continue due to the Hubbert Peak. Iran is on the wrong side of the bell curve. The side were production fizzles out to Zero.

  6. arabconqueredpersian, Your information is out of date, most if not all of the old oil fields that everyone thought was played out are refilling from lower down, some of them have reached pressures that are dangerous. The dirty secret the left doesn’t want people to know is that if the EPA would allow pumping from the old fields, and build new refineries the US would be energy independent. In fact we could export oil and gas, this refilling is occurring all around the world, I don’t know just what is in play in the refilling. There are two theories, one theory is a abiotic oil, with the oil being made by the pressure from the rocks on some chemicals. The other theory is that the oil pools are much deeper then believed and the oil from deep down is seeping up through cracks to fill the places that were previously filled with oil. Either way Iran will not run out of oil anytime soon. And if you have to import foreign techs to run your power plants at a time that your main money machine is running out of product your are making a real bad decision, what happens when you can’t pay the salaries of the imported people? I still say that oil or gas fired plants make more sense for the Iranians, the only reason they would want nuclear plants is to harvest the plutonium to make nuclear weapons. Since the current leader of Iran thinks he was put on this earth to bring about the apocalypse we don’t want Iran to get their hands on nukes. As to the latest on the worm, it is starting to look like Iran is getting close to lashing out at random to try and hit the nation responsible for this attack.

  7. Richard I quoted Kate Mcenzie from the Times from May of this year. This information is up to date. All oil fields do have a life span. That life span is vital to understand. Take the US for example. Up to the Seventies the US was the world’s number one oil producer. It is no longer that. Why? because the oil wells it pumped ran dryer and dryer until it lost its number one position. We see that now with Saudi Arabia. Since the Seventies Saudi has held the number one spot. No longer. The crown has moved again. It is now with Russia. Now back to Iran. Iran is number four in the world behind the States. The states is still a big player but now it has dropped to third place. So historically we can see that the world’s number oil producer has gone to third place. Why should Iran not suffer the same fate? It too is suffering a loss of production and the reason for that is well know. It is the life cycle of its wells as mapped out for all oil producing wells by the Hubbert Peak.

  8. That isn’t what my contacts in the oil industry say, they are saying that the old fields are refilling with oil pushed up from deeper in the earth. I know this doesn’t get reported, just as the fact that even without the old fields there is enough oil in the US for our own use for over 500 years. Learn to check deeper, the media articles will be pushing the limits of growth idea and will not mention anything that contradicts this.

  9. Thanks for the information Richard. I have one question. How are the dried wells refilling with oil. Does it only apply to some wells or all wells. In which case how is it that there are countries who are now in the positon of net importers of oil such as the UK when only a short while ago they had abundant oil?

  10. Oil is seeping up from lower down in the earth, it is taking time because the cracks it is seeping through are small, I don’t know how much oil is down there but some of the old wells are under so much pressure there is fear of explosions. Our great EPA won’t let the oil companies pump any oil to reduce the pressure. As to whether or not the oil is old or is being made by pressure on other chemicals I don’t know. I do know that there are several theories about this, one is that all oil is abiotic and made by pressure on chemicals rather then from decaying organic matter.

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