New Computer Malware May Presage Another Cyberattack, Potentially on Iran

By: R.M. Schneiderman, Newsweek's: The Daily Beast

Roughly a year ago, the era of cyberwar officially began with the revelation that a complex computer worm called Stuxnet, allegedly designed in the U.S and tested in Israel, had sabotaged the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz.

It was, as Stewart Baker, the former general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency, told Newsweek last December, “the first time we’ve actually seen a weapon created by a state to achieve a goal that you would otherwise have used multiple cruise missiles to achieve.”

Now a new variant of malicious software called Duqu, which uses remarkably similar coding, has emerged, and though security analysts remain divided as to whether Stuxnet’s creators are responsible, many concede that Duqu could very well be a precursor to yet another cyberattack.

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