Looks like contradictory to the approache followed by security experts around the world in pursuing a cyber attack, Iran has a “weird” way of dealing with such cases. It was reported by its state-run Mehr news agency that Iranian authorities were rounding up people who distributed the worm that reportedly was aimed at its power plants. Authorities treated the distributors as spies and locked them up!
The Trojan called Stuxnet was so sophisticated that security experts believed that could not have been made without the help of a foreign government. The Trojan was aimed to bring down the Bushehr nuclear-power station. The authorities suspect that the distribution of the virus was an inside job.
In a statement by Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi, “The glorious Islamic revolutionaries have arrested a number of nuclear spies”. The Ministry did not give out any details as to who got arrested. It was reported that the Ministry believes that the worm was made either in the US or Israel.
As of today all industrial computers that were affected by the virus were cleaned and stable again. About 30,000 computers were infected and more than 60 percent of Stuxnet victims were in Iran.
Those unsuspecting computer users who accidentally distributed the Trojan are now behind bars, thanks to this new approach by the Iranian authorities.
You can read the original story here.
Editor’s Note: The names – Virus, Trojan and Worm have been loosely used in this article.