Iran under siege from cyber attacks?

Asia Times:
Five recent explosions in Iran may have been caused by computer viruses similar to the Stuxnet virus that disabled Iranian centrifuges in 2010.

Two of the blasts took place at power plants, one at a missile research, development and production site, one at a new uranium enrichment centrifuge center, and the last (if it can be considered part of the attacks) in downtown Tehran at a medical facility that could have been a cover for nuclear operations, such as a hidden command center.

Iran says that in the case of the Shiraz Power Plant the facility was hit by a cyberattack, which poses the question: Is this “the son of Stuxnet?”

Stuxnet was a computer virus used to attack Iranian centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility in September 2010. Specifically, it is a type of computer worm that can destroy or change the Windows operating system, attack a particular industrial controller (the Siemens PCS 7, Step 7 controller) and alter the performance of programmable control systems, all of which make up the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA). A large centrifuge facility must have industrial controllers to regulate individual centrifuges.

The object of the attack, attributed to Israel and the United States was to overspin Iranian centrifuges so they broke down and caused enough damage to render them permanently inoperable.

A new section of the same Natanz centrifuge uranium enrichment facility was hit by an explosion last week. It caused a significant fire and appears to have destroyed the latest addition to the centrifuge project.

Unlike Stuxnet, which was designed to be non-lethal, all the recent attacks caused large explosions. However, outside of Tehran – where 18 people died – no other loss of life has been reported.
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There is much speculation whether the latest attacks have been by local groups, or even whether the Israeli Air force used its new F-35 stealth jets to bomb Iranian targets.

David Wurmser, a leading American Middle East Expert who was a top adviser to former Vice President Dick Chaney and is now with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, makes the case that these attacks were highly professional, used expert targeting, and probably did not involve the use of locals to carry them out.

So far, while Iran has complained they were hit by a cyberattack, they have stayed away from directly blaming anyone, although Iranian officials did say they were issuing warnings to Israel and the United States. Meanwhile the Israeli press is reporting that Israel is preparing for an Iranian response, which means that the cycle of attacks may be far from over.

On April 24 and April 25 Iran launched a series of attacks on six Israeli water facilities. The incidents damaged Israel’s water supply and wastewater management. A particularly clever trick used by the Iranians, also potentially lethal to the population, was to release large amounts of chlorine into the water supply. Iran successfully hacked into the controllers that ran the water pumps including the chlorine tanks that control the addition of chlorine to Israeli water distribution pipes and reservoirs. Chlorine is a disinfecting agent if used in small quantities and most city water supply systems use the chemical, as do swimming pools. In large concentrations, however, chlorine is a dangerous poison. Syria has been using chlorine-filled barrel bombs against rebels and civilians.

Israel claimed that the Iranian attacks crossed a red line. A senior Israeli official said: “This is an attack which defies all [ethical] codes, even in war. Even from the Iranians, we did not expect such a thing. This is an attack which it’s forbidden to conduct.”
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The possibility that these attacks are counter-attacks to Iran's attempt to kill Israelis by messing with their water supply could account for Iran's low key response to the explosions and fires.  The Israeli media has been reporting on the explosion and one such report had a video that appears to have been taken from an apartment or hotel in Tehran at a distance by a cell phone.

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