Iran nuclear sabotage cyber attack(Operation Olympic Games) story
Since last week, I am talking about some of the prominent cyber attacks that have happened over years. In the last week article, I was talking about the biggest cyber bank heist where Bangladesh central bank was almost robbed to the extent of one billion US dollars. In this week’s article, I am going to talk about one of the most prominent cyberattacks a country has carried out on an other country, how it was planned, details about the cyber weapon used for the attack, and how it was carried out and impact of that cyberattack. I will end with various other prominent cyberattacks or cyberwars which had a major impact on Iranian nuclear program.
How Operation Olympic Games was carried out :-
The cyber attack, I am referring to in this article happened in Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, as part of a well planned state supported cyber operation called “Operation Olympic Games“. According to the Atlantic Monthly, Operation Olympic Games is “probably the most significant covert manipulation of the electromagnetic spectrum since World War II, when Polish cryptanalysts[3] broke the Enigma cipher that allowed access to Nazi codes”. It is alleged that America started this operation under George W Bush Junior in 2006 to disrupt and delay Iran’s nuclear weapon program. Later Israel joined this program and along with US cyber offensive team, developed a cyber weapon called “Stuxnet” with the goal to gain access to the Natanz plant’s industrial computer controls and then cripple or make the centrifuges in the Nuclear power plant to misbehave by causing major disruption or fire and thereby disrupting the nuclear weapon ambitions of Iran.
Stuxnet is a sophisticated piece of computer malware program designed to specifically targets programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, which allow the automation of electromechanical processes such as those used to control machinery and industrial processes including gas centrifuges for separating nuclear material. Stuxnet reportedly compromised Iranian PLCs, collecting information on industrial systems and causing the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart. In September, 2010 the computer virus caused the engines in IR-1 centrifuges to increase their speed and eventually explode. At least 1,000 centrifuges of the 9,000 installed at Natanz were destroyed resulting in a major disruption in Iran’s nuclear power ambitions. It also prevented Israel from physical bombing of such Iranian nuclear plants and had a psychological effect and weakened the morale of Iranians.
Though there is no clear report on how the virus got into the Natanz nuclear facility, it is believed that some employee may have given access accidently by clicking a link or email attachment or inserting a external disk or visiting a infected website. Another theory is that a Dutch engineer working at the enrichment plant in Natanz infected one of the computers by acting as a mole. One more theory as per a Dutch magazine is that a mechanic working for a front company doing work at Natanz, who in reality worked for AIVD, the Dutch intelligence agency introduced this virus.
After this attack, there were few more similar cyber attacks on Iranian Nuclear facilities like :
- In April 2011, Iran’s cyber defense agency discovered a virus nicknamed “Stars” that was designed to infiltrate and damage its nuclear facilities.
- In November 2011, Iran said it had contained Duqu, the third virus aimed at disrupting Iran’s nuclear program. Duqu used programming code that was also used in the 2010 Stuxnet attack.
- In April 2012, Iran discovered the “Wiper” malware erasing the hard drives of computers owned by the oil ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company.
