Iran’s nuclear program is back in the spotlight as US President Donald Trump has made it clear he wants Tehran to stop enriching its stockpile of uranium to weapons-grade levels. Trump has called Iran’s nuclear program the biggest bargaining chip for Iran to avoid a US military strike.
Iran has so far refused to end its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes, but has expressed openness to some concessions to address US concerns.
The threat of a military strike is the latest attempt by the US to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In the past, the US has tried to derail Iran’s nuclear program through sanctions and various covert operations.
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Operation of the Olympic Games
The most notable such operation was Operation Olympics, believed to have begun in 2006. Although never officially acknowledged, according to a New York Times report, Operation Olympics began under the George W. Bush administration and continued under President Obama.
Stuxnet
Operation Olympics was carried out jointly by the US and Israel and involved the use of Stuxnet, a malware that infiltrated the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.
Stuxnet was a uniquely complex piece of malware said to have been in development for three years and was capable of attacking multiple layers of Natanz’s infrastructure. Stuxnet is also considered to be the world’s first digital weapon.
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Due to its strategic nature, the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was not connected to the Internet and access was severely restricted, meaning that Stuxnet could not infect the systems there by conventional means.
How Stuxnet got to Natanz
The US and Israel, in cooperation with the Dutch spy agency AIVD, managed to smuggle Stuxnet onto a USB drive inside Natanz. It was done by a Dutch engineer who set up a shell company and gained access to Natanz while posing as a technician.
It is unclear exactly how Stuxnet was transmitted to the computer inside Natanz. It is believed that the Dutch spy either directly installed the code himself by inserting a USB into the control systems or infected the engineer’s system.
What did Stuxnet do
Either way, Stuxnet lay low and only became active in 2008, exploiting an unprecedented four previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows to spread across networks and gain administrative control.
Once active, Stuxnet began disrupting the enrichment process by suddenly changing the speed at which the centrifuges were spinning, accelerating them beyond what they were designed to spin at, and then slowing them down. The aim was to both damage the centrifuges and undermine the efficiency of the enrichment process.
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And it worked, as Stuxnet destroyed approximately 1,000 centrifuges, about a fifth of the total number of facilities, and reduced enrichment efficiency by roughly 30 percent.
While this was happening, Stuxnet was also programmed to hide its results from the Iranian authorities by sending fake, normal-looking sensor data to the control room monitors to make everything appear normal.
Stuxnet was discovered in 2010 when it was discovered by Sergey Ulasen, a security researcher who was then working for the Belarusian antivirus company VirusBlokAda. But by then Stuxnet had done exactly what it was supposed to do – derail and delay Iran’s nuclear enrichment.
Key things
- Stuxnet demonstrated the potential of cyber warfare as a strategic military tool.
- The operation highlighted cooperation between the US, Israel and intelligence agencies.
- The impact of cyber attacks on national security can have long-term effects, as seen in Iran’s ongoing nuclear program.