Stuxnet- The story of the malicious computer worm that crippled the Iranian nuclear program

One day early in 2007 an Iranian nuclear engineer plugged his laptop into a secured computer network in Symantec Enrichment Complex. Weeks later without a single alarm or single warning the computers that oversaw the operations, hundreds of uranium enrichment centrifuges began to spin wildly out of control, causing massive destruction as they tore themselves into pieces while leaving the best engineering & scientific minds of the world in confusion.

Today we’ll find about Stuxnet- The Virus That Protected the World from Iran’s Nuclear Power.

Let’s first understand the background of the Iranian nuclear program and its regional applications.

In the 1950s, under the Atoms for Peace program, the US provided Iran technical training & a small experimental nuclear reactor with the aim of establishing a civilian nuclear energy program. This assistance continued until the Iranian revolution in 1979 which faced the opposition of some communities & the American assistance. Therefore in 1979 Iran shuttered its nuclear power program.

Again after 5 years in 1984 Iran rethought about its standards of nuclear power and decided that in the case of hustle attack & in case of Israel well stabilized with nuclear weapons, Iran’s security rested on developing its own nuclear weapons. Therefore then Iran sought for its technical support & materials from Russia, China & Pakistan.

Then this leads to an escalating cycle of sanctions which mean Iran & the UN over the cause of next few decades culminating with the discovery of secret uranium enrichment facilities & plans to outfit bullets & missiles with warheads. Iran was pressured & adopt to join a comprehensive plan of action in 2005 outlined a path of de-escalation of sanctions and complete transparency & dismantling of the nuclear program.

The US then feared for any direct military interventions & which could lead to a regional war. Therefore the US saw the need for delaying Iran’s nuclear programs. The National Security Agency (NSA) bought a solution with US Strategic Command. They proposed a delaying tactic that slows down Iran’s nuclear program. To achieve this delay they proposed a cyber weapon that would not only delay & infect the uranium computer networks but also create physical destruction by completely hijacking. To complete this mission Stuxnet was born.

To penetrate the computer networks of the world’s most heavily guarded nuclear facilities & destroying the enrichment centrifuges. The centrifuges were specifically targeted because of their delicate nature; raw uranium contains 2 isotopes U-235 & U-238.

In order to create a bomb, you need 90% pure U-235. But unrefined uranium only contains about 7% U-235. To create weapons using uranium raw ore uranium is mixed with hydrofluoric acid to create a gas which is then inserted into a centrifuge which spins at over 100,000 RPM or faster than speed. Because U-238 is about 1% heavier than U-235, the U-238 atoms are pushed to the wall of the centrifuge. The gas in the centre containing concentrated U-235 atoms is siphoned out & fed into another centrifuge. This process is repeated over & over again, linking long chains of centrifuges together in banks until finally extracting a purified gas mixture with a heavy concentration U-235. Because of the extreme speed of the enriched centrifuge, they are very delicate. The tiniest fluctuation in power can cause one to spin out of control & tear itself.

Natanz & other enrichments would be inserted into the computer networks & they would completely map the network, then phone home back to the NSA with the security details & how the centrifuges were connected to their controlling computer. Then a new active version of the malware would be developed & reinserted into the Iranian networks wherewith; like domains, weeks monitoring the day to day activities of the plant before finally going active. Upon being activated, the malware would be ingeniously playing back signs of normal operations to the humans monitoring the computer systems, while it was the fact in beginning its attack. Deep in their control centre, Iranian engineers would have no idea that miles away centrifuges spinning away at the speed of sound tearing them. Because the Stuxnet should be completely un-detectable & un-traceable.  It is designed to never attack twice in the same fashion leaving the Iranian scientists & engineers leaving frustrated.

Then the Iranian computer networks are secured by being completely disconnected from any internet connection in a method known as air gapping.

Then again NSA created a list of Iranian scientists & engineers who had access to physical enrichment facilities & display poor electronic security habits. These individuals were then targeted with malware & had their laptops & flash drives infected over the internet when they plug them to the security networks of Natanz & other facilities to do their work, Stuxnet would jump back & forth freely effectively giving the complete access to NSA.

A new version of the Stuxnet malware began to unexpectedly replicate across the entire internet, infecting millions of computers globally. This malware is relatively harmless & as it was specifically designed to operate in the environment of the Iranian nuclear facilities network. The source code for the malware is now publically available.

Hope you gained something new from this article.
Like, Comment, and Stay tuned for the next article.