The Stuxnet worm discovered in 2010 shocked the world. This worm was originally discovered by the Belarusian security company VirusBlokAda. The name Stuxnet was also taken from the keywords in the virus code. Stuxnet was once hailed as the most powerful virus in history. This worm was also the first known worm targeted at industrial control systems. It exploited vulnerabilities in control systems developed by Siemens to infect data collection and monitoring systems. It was also able to write code to programmable logic controllers and hide itself.
In 2012, U.S. officials admitted that the Stuxnet virus was developed by the CIA with funding from Israel. Its main purpose was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Of course, the Stuxnet virus eventually achieved its goal.
Spies developed by the CIA:
The Dutch newspaper Volkswagen spent two years investigating the details behind Stuxnet. This investigation fills the gap in how the Stuxnet virus entered Iran's nuclear facilities.
The investigation revealed that in 2005, Erik van Sabben, a 36-year-old Dutch citizen at the time, was working for a heavy transport company in Dubai. Later, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies sought help from the Dutch General Directorate of Intelligence and Security, and then approached van Sabben.
The Dutch General Directorate of Intelligence and Security even carried out this matter secretly. They did not inform the Dutch government about it, and the Dutch government was kept in the dark.
vanSabben had a technical background, did business in Iran, and was married to an Iranian woman. These conditions made the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies believe that vanSabben was the best candidate, so they recruited vanSabben as a spy to plant the Stuxnet virus.
Inserting viruses through water pumps:
After successfully recruiting van Sabben, the Dutchman followed instructions to implant the Stuxnet virus into water pumps installed at the Natanz nuclear power plant in Isfahan, Iran. It is unclear whether van Sabben knew what he was doing, but his family said he seemed to panic when the Stuxnet virus was exposed.
Two weeks after the Stuxnet attack, van Sabben died in a motorcycle accident in the United Arab Emirates.
It is still unclear whether the virus was actually implanted through the water pump. The then CIA director agreed to be interviewed, but because Stuxnet-related operations were still classified, he could not confirm.
Another researcher who conducted an in-depth analysis after Stuxnet was exposed noted that water pumps were unable to carry copies of Stuxnet.
As for the claim by the then CIA director that the development cost of Stuxnet was between US$1 billion and US$2 billion, a former Kaspersky researcher expressed doubts about this. He believed that the CIA exaggerated the development cost.
What happens next?
After the Stuxnet virus penetrated into Iran's nuclear facilities through water pumps (if it is true), it gradually began to spread. Since the nuclear facilities were not connected to the Internet, the virus was initially spread mainly through USB flash drives and other removable disks.
As the virus spread, PCs of ordinary people began to be infected, so the Stuxnet virus began to connect to the Internet, and then infected approximately 60% of the computers in Iran.
It should have infected quite a few computers around the world, but the Stuxnet virus has preset conditions. It will not take any action after infection for PCs in countries other than the target country, but will continue to use this PC as a stronghold to spread horizontally, infecting as many PCs as possible to collect more useful data or cause damage.
The final result of the Stuxnet virus was considered a success, because the CIA and Israel successfully affected the normal operation of Iran's uranium enrichment equipment through the Stuxnet virus, slowing down Iran's research progress.