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New Thesis on How Stuxnet Infiltrated Iran Nuclear Facility
(Christian Science Monitor) Mark Clayton - It's been fairly well documented that the U.S. and Israel created the Stuxnet worm, which ultimately infected and destroyed about 1,000 fuel-refining centrifuges at Iran's secret Natanz nuclear fuel-enrichment facility. But how did Stuxnet infiltrate Natanz? Critical Intelligence, a cyber security firm, outlined a new thesis Tuesday at a security conference in San Francisco. As early as 2004, U.S. intelligence agencies identified an Iranian company, NEDA Industrial Group, that had oversight of the Natanz facility's computerized industrial control systems. Documents suggest that the U.S. was monitoring NEDA's efforts to procure components that may be needed for a nuclear weapons program, says Sean McBride, director of analysis for Critical Intelligence. In 2008, the U.S. targeted the Siemens industrial control systems equipment that NEDA had ordered from overseas. Equipment bound for Iran was intercepted, and Stuxnet was installed on it, before it was sent on its way, McBride posits.