US Aims to Widen Nuclear Terrorism against Iran
(FNA)- A US cyber war against Iran's nuclear program may have only just begun and could escalate with explosions triggered by digital sabotage, western experts said.
Although the Iranian government has foiled several cyber attacks in the aftermath of the "Stuxnet" worm that sought to disrupt its uranium enrichment work, Tehran may need to intensify its measures for its digital security, some analysts said.
Analysts believe that Tehran will come under intensified digital assaults by the US and Israel.
The US, which masterminded the Stuxnet operation along with Israel, has every incentive to press ahead with a cyber campaign to undermine Iran's atomic ambitions, according to analysts.
The next cyber attack, possibly in combination with more traditional spy craft, will try to shut off valves or issue incorrect orders that might cause an explosion at a sensitive site.
"I think that it could get more violent," David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said. "I would expect more facilities to blow up."
"There is of course the possibility of sending in a team to modify a system in a way that would make it vulnerable, and then use a cyber weapon at a later date as a trigger event," said David Lindahl, research engineer at the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
A new wave of cyber attacks could involve inserting hardware with infected chips into the industrial process, possibly through an agent or a duped employee, or penetrating diagnostic software used to gauge uranium enrichment or other work, Lindahl said.
The elaborate Stuxnet malware, which was reportedly introduced using a thumb drive, contained malicious code that could cause centrifuges used to enrich uranium to spin out of control. The worm would sent back signals to operators indicating the centrifuges were operating normally.
By pushing the boundaries of cyber warfare, the US has left itself open to retaliation. But US officials clearly view the risks associated with digital strikes as dwarfed by the dangers of an all-out war with Iran.
Bombing raids are "more likely to explode the region and certainly could lead to a conflict with Iran, and that would be very messy", said Lewis. "Cyber is much cleaner."
Although unnamed officials told The New York Times that the US and Israel were behind the digital operations, cyber attacks - unlike air strikes - allow for "plausible deniability", he said.
"Stuxnet demonstrated going from a disruptive capability to a destructive capability and that's what made it unique," he said.
The super virus also was unusual for the way it sought out a specific target while sidestepping systems that did not fit certain criteria.
"Almost all cyber attacks are 'to whom it may concern' but Stuxnet was a bullet with someone's name on it," Lindahl said.
"Repeating something like Stuxnet or [computer virus] Flame will be much more difficult, because they [the Iranians] will spend a lot more energy trying to stop those activities," he added.