Nuclear Blackout or a Cyber Attack?
On Sunday, an incident at Iran’s nuclear facility led to power failure at the Natanz complex south of Tehran. The country’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi called in the act of “Nuclear Terrorism.” The “sabotage” occurred a day after the country unveiled new uranium enrichment equipment, the country’s top nuclear official says. Iran is currently investigating the attack and claims cyber-attack may be the cause behind the blackout.
Natanz nuclear facility has already had a history with cyber-attack bring closing down operations like the infamous Stuxnet attack that was identified in the year 2010 that took control of the centrifuge present at the plant, making them spin uncontrollably, causing them to tear themselves apart, setting the nuclear ambition back years.
While Iran has invested heavily in securing its nuclear program against physical attacks like air raids by developing its air defenses, it remains vulnerable to sophisticated cyber-attacks. This problem is further compounded by the fact that intelligence agencies like the CIA and particularly Mossad have managed to develop an extraordinarily well-informed network of agents inside Iran. These agents can further sabotage Iran’s nuclear facility systems as they have access to their networks locally capable of deploying malware without much needed in terms of remote access.
Communication and information technologies are evolving rapidly, were miracles that were not thought possible a decade earlier have become such an integral part of our lives that we can no longer imagine living without them. But attacks such as these on the most secure networks have shown us repeatedly that we are still lagging far behind in securing these Technologies.
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