Its name is synonymous with cyberwarfare. We still know a little more about Stuxnet, this computer worm which destroyed Iranian centrifuges at the end of 2009, thus sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program. An article in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant has just given new details on this computer sabotage operation.
It had already been said that a Dutch engineer was involved in the “Olympic Games” operation, its code name. Attributed to the United States and Israel, these two countries also relied on Germany, France and the Netherlands. Germany would have provided, for example, the technical details and detailed operation of industrial control systems manufactured by Siemens, used to control centrifuges,
Really fascinating details about the involvement of Dutch agent Erik van Sabben in releasing Stuxnet into Natanz https://t.co/wATwMNNEo8 pic.twitter.com/UNuMNqslNe
— Haydn Belfield (@HaydnBelfield) January 10, 2024
Water pumps
The Dutch engineer was actually called Erik van Sabben, De Volkskrant has just told. This 36-year-old man, who worked for a transport company in Dubai, had been recruited by the Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD. Died in January 2009 after a road accident, the engineer was responsible for infiltrating the Natanz complex and installing tampered with water pumps there.
It was the installation of these water pumps and their connection to the computer network, and not just the plugging in of a USB key containing the malicious program, which would have allowed Stuxnet to spread throughout the complex’s IT. “It is possible that the virus was spread both via the USB stick and the water pump,” De Volkskrant cautiously notes. A virus of which the Dutch engineer was obviously unaware.
Questions
The development of Stuxnet would also have cost, continues the Dutch daily, between one and two billion dollars. In any case, this is what Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA, the American intelligence agency, allegedly confided to members of Dutch intelligence.
Computer security experts greeted this new information with interest sprinkled with skepticism. Research director Mikko Hypponen surprised on X (formerly Twitter) of the supposed development cost of Stuxnet.
“Millions, certainly, tens of millions of course, but a billion, I don’t think,” he tweeted. Another specialist doubted that a water pump could have carried a copy of the computer worm. Fifteen years later, Olympic Games definitely retains many secrets.