Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Mossad intelligence division are reportedly collaborating to develop a computer worm more destructive than the Stuxnet malware to spy on and destroy the software structure of Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranian Fars news agency has reported:
“Saudi spy chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Bardo sent their representatives to a meeting in Vienna on November 24 to increase the two sides’ cooperation in intelligence and sabotage operations against Iran’s nuclear program.“
“One of the proposals raised in the meeting was the production of a malware worse than the Stuxnet to spy on and destroy the software structure of Iran’s nuclear program,”
But Why? The report claims that Saudi Arabia and Israel were not particularly happy with the deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France, and Britain plus Germany), and Israel has dubbed the deal as a “historic mistake” while Saudi Arabia has called it “West’s treachery“.
The report also adds that the two counties have agreed to a cost of around $1 million to develop this malware.
The Real Stuxnet – The original Stuxnet malware was uncovered targeting Iranian nuclear systems in 2010, most likely infected isolated systems by way of removable storage devices like USB flash drives and by exploiting vulnerabilities in Windows systems. The malware has since managed to spread outside of Iran and has affected several other power plants, some close to Europe.
NSA leaker Edward Snowden even confirmed that Stuxnet Malware was developed by the US and Israel Together. What Next? Tehran is getting seriously worried about the Saudi-Israeli intelligence partnership and the prospect of them acting together for covert operations, including cyber warfare, against their nuclear projects.
Recently Stuxnet also infected the internal network of a Russian nuclear plant. But what if this new destructive malware did get into other computers? What would the effect be?