Iran secretly approached computer security experts in several Western and Eastern European countries this week and offered them very large sums to come to Tehran and try to help fight the self-replicating computer virus Stuxnet, which continues to afflict central control computer systems in strategic industries in Iran.
Debka sources said there is still no agreement on the arrival of expert teams in Iran, mainly because the Iranians have refused to provide accurate information on Iranian computer systems hit by the cyber attack.
It is also known that the connection of the Bushehr NPP to the Iranian power supply system has been postponed for several months, until the beginning of 2011. Officially, this decision is explained by "hot weather in the country."
New York Times computer experts believe they have found a link between a virus that attacks computers in Iran and the biblical Book of Esther (Esther), which takes place in Persia (Iran).
According to American experts, one of the codenames of the virus is Myrtus, that is, myrtle, in Hebrew "hadas" - הדס - from which the second name of Queen Esther - "Hadassah" comes from.
As Cursor has already reported, Iran has acknowledged that cyber attacks on computers in the country's industrial centers are not only continuing, but also intensifying, and the country is in fact in a state of cyber war.
The IRNA news agency reported that virus attacks are wreaking havoc on Iranian military and industrial computer systems. The damage from this war turned out to be much larger than it was believed in Iran and the West.
Hamid Alipur, head of Iran's government information technology agency responsible for finding countermeasures against the attack, told the agency that it was a new type of virus that continues to spread.
According to Iranian estimates, attacks require "huge investments" from foreign states or organizations.
As Cursor reported, following a massive attack on Iran's computer networks, an attempt was recorded to disable the computers of the defense departments and government agencies in Israel.
To prevent such incidents, a special unit for combating cyber-terror has been created under the Shin Bet.
According to a representative of this structure, attempts to attack Israel's computer networks are registered daily. The source declined to explain exactly where the attacks are coming from, but stressed that it is not about ordinary hackers, but about "entire states."
At the same time, the New York Times reported that the attack on Iranian computer networks was carried out using the self-replicating Stuxnet virus. According to the newspaper, the damage from this act of cyber terror is comparable to an Israeli air force strike.
