"The New York Times", citing intelligence and military exports, reports that over the past two years the Dimona nuclear complex was used as a critical testing ground to test the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm. According to the report, the Stuxnet worm, which sabotaged Iran's nuclear program and delayed Iran's ability to build the bomb by several years, was a joint US-Israel venture.
"Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.
"The New York Times" quotes an American expert on nuclear intelligence as saying, “To check out the worm, you have to know the machines. The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out."
American and Israeli officials generally refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona. However, the reports says that operations there, as well as related efforts in the US, "are among the newest and strongest clues" pointing to an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program.
"The New York Times" notes that, in the past few days, outgoing Mossad director Meir Dagan and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton separately announced that they believed Iran’s efforts had been set back by several years. Mrs. Clinton cited American-led sanctions, which have hurt Iran’s ability to buy components and do business around the world.
Dagan told the Knesset in recent days that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015, a sharp reversal from claims that Iran was on the cusp of success.
"The New York Times" says, "The biggest single factor in putting time on the nuclear clock appears to be Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed."
"The New York Times" adds, "Experts who have picked apart the computer worm describe it as far more complex - and ingenious - than anything they had imagined when it began circulating around the world, unexplained, in mid-2009.
"Many mysteries remain, chief among them, exactly who constructed a computer worm that appears to have several authors on several continents. But the digital trail is littered with intriguing bits of evidence."
The paper says that in 2008 Siemens cooperated with the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory, which is responsible for America’s nuclear energy and security, to identify the vulnerabilities of computer controllers that the company sells to operate industrial machinery around the world, and that US intelligence agencies have identified as key equipment in Iran’s enrichment facilities. Siemens says that program was part of routine efforts to secure its products against cyberattacks - but it also apparently gave the US the chance to identify well-hidden holes in the Siemens systems that were exploited the next year by Stuxnet.
"The New York Times" says, "The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.
"The attacks were not fully successful: Some parts of Iran’s operations ground to a halt, while others survived, according to the reports of international nuclear inspectors. Nor is it clear the attacks are over: Some experts who have examined the code believe it contains the seeds for yet more versions and assaults."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 16, 2011
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