TEHRAN: Iran said its Bushehr nuclear power plant is safe after confirming some of its industrial computers have been targeted by a computer worm and that it is working to counter the cyber-attack.
“The main systems of the Bushehr nuclear power plant have not been damaged,” Mahmoud Jahfari, the plant’s project manager, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “Investigations show that some private software of the power plant’s employees have been contaminated.”
The cyber assault has had no impact on the operations of the plant, Jahfari said.
The IP addresses of 30,000 computer systems infected by the Stuxnet worm have been detected, state-run Mehr news agency reported earlier, citing Mahmoud Liaii, director of the Information Technology Council of the Ministry of Industries and Mines. A worm is a self-replicating piece of malicious software, or malware.
“An electronic war has been launched against Iran,” Liaii said in the report published. “This computer worm is designed to transfer data about production lines from our industrial plants to locations outside Iran.”
A worm that has infected industrial computers around the world may be part of a campaign targeting nuclear installations in Iran, computer-security researchers said. Almost 60 per cent of affected systems are in Iran, according to data from Symantec Corp., the computer-security software maker.
The malware’s sophisticated programming and ability to hide itself suggest it may have been built by a government-sponsored organization in a country such as the US or Israel, said Frank Rieger, technology chief at GSMK, a maker of encrypted mobile phones.
Liaii said a working group, which includes representatives from the Communications and Information Technology Ministry and the Industries and Mines Ministry, has been set up to look into ways to combat the worm.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Reza Taghipour said no “serious damage” to the country’s industrial computer systems have so far been reported. Iranian engineers have the expertise to counter the threat, the Mehr report cited him as saying.
Iran is under United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program, which the US and Israel along with other allies accuse of being a cover for the development of atomic weapons. Iran rejects the claim and says it needs the technology for civilian uses such as electricity generation and medical research.
Iran inaugurated its first nuclear-power plant in the southern province of Bushehr on Aug. 21 when it started the process of loading fuel rods into the Russian-built plant.