Stuxnet

Stuxnet  (Computer virus,  “Cyberwarfare”,  Sabotage,  Low-intensity warfare)
Start	2005
Interest of	AIVD
A production of the NSA and Unit 8200, designed to sabotage Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

Stuxnet is a computer virus that affects Microsoft Windows. It was first identified in 2010, and hailed as a most impressive feat, giving rise to suspicions that it was produced by a large team of professionals such as a national intelligence agency. Edward Snowden confirmed that it was a joint NSA/Unit 8200 production.

Origins

Symantec suggest that Stuxnet may have been in the wild already by 2005.

Death of Installer

According to an investigation by Dutch newspaper De Volkrkrant comprising of "travelling to Dubai, Israel and the United States, speaking with (former) employees of the Mossad, Israel's military service AMAN and the U.S. intelligence agency CIA. The newspaper also spoke with Iranians, former employees of the Natanz nuclear facility, cybersecurity specialists, diplomats, civil servants and individuals who worked in the AIVD or MIVD. A total of 43 people at home and abroad were interviewed, 19 of whom were from the AIVD or MIVD. Those interviews, because sources are not authorized to talk to media, were almost always on a background basis". The investigation revealed the worm was installed by recruited engineer Erik van Sabben.

Van Sabben was a spook recruited somewhere in a 2005 "off-the-books" billion-dollar operation by the Dutch intelligence agencies AIVD and MIVD on the order of the CIA and Mossad to hack a nuclear facility in Iran using Stuxnet in 2008. Van Sabben died 2 weeks later of a suspicious motor cycle "accident" in Duabi two weeks after the infiltration undercover operation concluded successfully. An AIVD officer later admitted on the promise of secrecy in 2024 that -- although the official local investigation ruled the single-bike accident "his own fault" -- that van Sabben was assassinated and "paid a high price".

Technical aspects

Stuxnet exploited four zero-day flaws. It is typically introduced to the target environment via an infected USB flash drive. It poses no real threat to ordinary users, since its payload is highly specific; it only affects Siemens Step7 software on computers which control a PLC.

Purposes

Stuxent was engineered to sabotage the Iranian project to develop nuclear weapons. To achieve this, it had to reach the computers controlling the centrifuges, which were air-gapped.

The technical prowess needed to create such a piece of malware, and the fact it exploited 4 zero day bugs lead many to suggest that it was created by an intelligence agency, and the NSA was long suspected. The 2016 film Zero Days quotes an anonymous source that Stuxnet was developed by the NSA in concert with Unit 8200. It also stated that in its original form, it might have never been detected, but that Unit 8200 were anxious that it take effect quickly, and so they modified it to increase virulence at the expense of stealth.

Effects

Stuxnet temporarily disabled 1,000 centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Erik van Sabben	“To his family members, it is still a mystery: Dutchman Erik van Sabben leaves for ten days in late 2008 for the Iranian capital of Tehran. The 36-year-old engineer - a fearless adventurer who is not afraid to take risks and works in Dubai for a heavy transport company - is going with his Iranian wife to visit her family. It should be a festive end to the year. But after just one day, Van Sabben, used to working in stressful situations and under high pressure, wants to leave Iran. He seems panicked. Why the engineer wants to leave the country, he cannot say. His Dutch mother says of it fifteen years later, “We all thought it was very strange. His Iranian wife: “He was so upset and insisted that we leave immediately.<a href="#cite_note-8">[8]</a><a href="#cite_note-9">[9]</a> What his immediate family and wife do not know: Van Sabben carries a secret with him. He leads a double life. Research by the Volkskrant, in which over a period of two years 43 people were spoken to, 19 of whom were from the intelligence services AIVD and MIVD, shows that Van Sabben was recruited by the Dutch secret service.”	Erik van Sabben Huib Modderkolk	2017

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