14 DAY TRIAL // Iran's minister of intelligence Heydar Moslehi announced that several spies have been arrested following cyber attacks against its nuclear program and said that Stuxnet is the result of foreign spy services.
The Stuxnet worm, which is already viewed as the most sophisticated piece of malware ever discovered, has affected thousands of computers at industrial facilities in Iran.
Giving its ability to spy and program Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems used in power plants, oil and gas refineries, factories and so on, the worm can be used for both espionage and sabotage.
According to Sky News, Heydar Moslehi, the country's intelligence minister said that the Iranian government discovered "destructive activities of the arrogance (of Western powers) in cyberspace, and different ways to confront them have been designed and implemented".
"I assure all citizens that the intelligence apparatus currently has complete supervision on cyberspace and will not allow any leak or destruction of our country's nuclear activities," he added.
Mr. Moslehi did not directly link the alleged spy arrests to the Stuxnet worm and it's worth noting that Iran periodically announces the arrest of spies and doesn't provide any other details.
The head of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant has previously admitted that the worm reached the facility, but stressed that it only affected personal computers used by the workers and not critical systems.
There's been a lot of speculation in regard to the identity of the worm's creators, which is believed to have been released sometime in 2009.
Its professional design and highly advanced routines, led some people to say that it was created by a team of experienced programmers working for a nation state.
Since Iran was one of the most affected countries, the United States and Israel were suggested as possible creators of the malware.
Security researchers from Symantec have identified a marker in the code, which points at the date of May 9, 1979, when Habib Elghanian, the president of the Tehran Jewish Society, was executed by the newly installed Islamic regime in Iran.