‘Obama unleashed cyber attack against Iran’
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama accelerated cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme and expanded the assault even after the Stuxnet virus accidentally escaped in 2010, a media report said on Friday.
The operation, begun under president George W Bush and codenamed “Olympic Games” , is the first known sustained US cyberattack ever launched on another country, and used malicious code developed with Israel, the New York Times said.
The Times said the article was based on 18 months of interviews with current and former US, European and Israeli officials, and was adapted from the book “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power” , by David Sanger , set to be published.
The cyberattack, aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and keeping Israel from launching a preventive military strike, sowed widespread confusion in Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant, the Times said.
However, top administration officials considered suspending it after Stuxnet — a complex virus developed jointly with Israel — “escaped” the facility and began appearing in computer systems in several countries. Obama eventually ordered the attacks to continue, and within a week of Stuxnet’s escape a newer version of the bug temporarily brought down 1,000 of Iran’s .5,000 nuclear centrifuges spinning at the time, the Times said.
