US, Israel behind Stuxnet cyber attack, says Iran

The US and Israel are behind the computer worm Stuxnet that infiltrated Iran's nuclear program, state news agency IRNA reported Saturday, quoting a military officer.

"Investigations and studies show that the source of Stuxnet originates from America and Israel," the commander of the Iranian civil defense organization, Gholam Reza Jalali, said.

Jalali is the first Iranian official to aim the accusation at Tehran's two arch-foes over the Stuxnet virus. German computer experts and some Western media reports had originally pointed the finger at the US and Israel.

Stuxnet was publicly identified in June before it reportedly mutated and wreaked havoc on computerized industrial equipment in Iran over the following months.

Jalali said once the worm mounts on a system, it begins to gather information and then sends reports from the infected machines to designated Internet addresses.

"This was a hostile act against us that could have brought major human and material damages had it not been encountered promptly," he said.

Jalali also said Iran should hold Siemens responsible for the fact that its control systems used to operate complicated factory machinery – known as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) – had been hit by the worm, Kayhan daily reported on Sunday.

Agencies