Computer security firm may have facilitated Iran's nuclear program.
By AVI PERRYA worm called Flame (photo credit: Ronny Gordon)
Have you ever wondered how the US and Israel have such detailed knowledge of the progress, the direction and the objectives of the Iranian nuclear project?Some ask why former Mossad boss Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, former head of Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), do not foresee the inevitability of an Israeli military attack on Iran.Others question how the Israeli air force was able to penetrate Turkey and Syria's air spaces and then go on to bomb Assad’s secret nuclear plant without being detected by the most sophisticated Russian radar systems deployed in Syria.These inquiries have one simple answer: the Israeli military poses a ubiquitous threat to enemy targets. Israel has the uncanny ability to pinpoint and initiate surgical strikes on targets in Gaza and in the West Bank at anytime and anywhere.The world has heard about Stuxnet, the computer virus that inflicted so much damage to Iran's uranium enrichment program. We now know that US President Barack Obama was an active partner in this cyber-attack on Iran. And with the insinuation of computer security firms such as Kaspersky and Symantec claiming that Israel and possibly the US were responsible for the Flame virus, it is becoming more and more apparent that war and espionage have leapt into the bloodless arena of cyberspace.Eugene Kaspersky, chief executive of the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab—which uncovered Flame last month—said that his researchers have since found that part of the Flame program code is nearly identical to code found in a 2009 version of Stuxnet. “There were two different teams working in collaboration,” Kaspersky revealed.Several computer experts, including Kaspersky, said that both Stuxnet and Flame must have been engineered by a state rather than an individual or a small group of hackers. These experts insisted that the cyber weapon (Stuxnet) and the super spyware worm (Flame) are simply too big and too sophisticated to be a product of anyone other than a state government.The fact that these programs targeted Iran’s nuclear project, infrastructure, and government officials, as well as other Muslim states in the Middle East with little or no side-infections, is circumstantial proof that Israel and the US have been collaborating in the creation of these cyber weapons.Thanks to cyber weapons such as Stuxnet and Flame, Israel and the US now know and control details of Iran's nuclear program.The detailed intelligence and the ability to control and remotely manipulate key installations inside Iran and other Middle Eastern countries has reduced global anxiety about Iran’s ability to surprise and bully the rest of the world. It also explains why former Israeli intelligent chiefs have expressed a passionate aversion to an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Additionally, it explains IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz’s confidence in the success of a potential military campaign against Iran.Nevertheless, Kaspersky does not want to join forces in the effort to stop Iran’s nuke program. On the contrary, he publicizes details of the Flame worm; he is working on detection and vaccination aimed at disabling it and preventing it from spreading. Directly or even indirectly, he lends a hand to Iran while helping the Ayatollah overcome and prevent further infections of his electronic infrastructure. Kaspersky is on the Iranian side of this cyber war.Kaspersky’s intentions are marketed as an effort to prevent a dangerous metastasis into unintended targets worldwide.However, the Flame worm and the Stuxnet virus have been specifically designed as a weapon of targeted killing with minimal collateral damage. These cyber weapons do not spread like a standard virus. They work like the latest "smart bomb" used to treat breast cancer by using a drug to deliver a toxic payload to tumor cells while leaving healthy ones alone.Kaspersky’s efforts must have contributed to an intelligence setback in the US and in Israel. The handlers of the Flame virus instructed it to self-destruct, leave no traces, and vanish into a cyber-black hole.Since proper intelligence is key to the avoidance of unnecessary wars or quickly disabling a terrorist enemy, there is only one possible conclusion to derive from Kaspersky’s actions: his firm has elevated the risk and cost of a military campaign against Iran. Kaspersky has not contributed to the development of a more peaceful world.Kaspersky and other security firms must join forces and cooperate with governments that are trying to prevent an Armageddon rather than defending those who try to bring it about.The writer is currently a talk show host at Paltalk News Network (PNN). He served as an intelligence expert for the Israeli government and was a professor at Northwestern University. He is the author of Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering in Wireless Networks, and more recently, 72 Virgins. Both books can be purchased at www.aviperry.org..
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