Is It Time For Another Stuxnet Attack On Iran?

A mysterious computer worm that has struck Iran has raised the spectre of a cyber attack as a new weapon of war, a danger NATO identifies as a key threat, experts say.The 28-nation transatlantic alliance will highlight the cyber menace in its new "strategic concept" that will be adopted at a NATO summit in Lisbon next month, according to diplomats.The danger became all too real with the emergence of Stuxnet in recent weeks, dubbed the world's "first cyber superweapon" by experts, and which has wreaked havoc on computerised industrial equipment in Iran.

Stuxnet failed to cause enough damage to Iran’s nuclear program, and more recent attacks on the country’s science ministry and oil industry have also apparently fallen flat, but practice makes perfect, and cyber warfare will continue to escalate, presumably with Iran going on the offensive as soon as its capabilities allow.  Iran’s Fars news agency claimed on 29 April that cyber attacks on the Iranian Science Ministry and the oil industry “failed to penetrate” or to leave “any impact on the data system”.…

As the world's economic powers squabble over the intricacies of cause and effect in a vicious cycle of currency devaluation and domestic economic defense; it appears, NYTimes reports, that the US is leading the way in another direction.

Iranian forces have carried out what they called cyber warfare tactics for the first time as the Islamic republic's naval units staged manoeuvres in the key Strait of Hormuz, media reports said on Monday.

What started last week as a series of reports on domestic spying by the NSA took a turn towards cyber security on Friday when Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian published the top secret Presidential Policy Directive 20 (PPD–20), which deals with U.S. policy and planning for cyber conflict. Like the other documents that The Guardian released, this one largely confirmed what those who pay close attention to these issues already knew: the United States is working to build up its offensive cyber warfare capabilities.

With the market still hopeful of some deus ex resolution to the Fiscal Cliff will take place in the last few trading sessions of the year (one where the market itself will not have to be the catalyst for such a resolution, because once the selling starts in earnest, who knows if and when it stops, hence the loading up on prodigious amounts of puts), here is Iran out of left field, adding yet another known unknown to the inequality, announcing that it will begin six days of naval drills in the Straits of Hormuz on Friday.

Iran’s developing ability to launch cyber attacks will make it “a force to be reckoned with,” the head of the U.S. Air Force Space Command said. General William Shelton said the Iranians are responding to an attack on the computer operating system that runs the uranium enrichment facilities in the country’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.