Iran admits cyber attack on its uranium enrichment facilities

RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED December 06, 2010

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted that a cyber attack created problems for some of Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV channel said on its website.

U.S. and German cyber-security experts have earlier pointed out that the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz was the main target of the Stuxnet computer virus, which earlier attacked Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Ahmadinejad told a news conference on Monday that "enemies" of Iran created limited problems for the country's uranium enrichment centrifuges, but neither the Natanz facility nor the Stuxnet worm were directly mentioned in his speech.

"They [the enemies] succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," the Iranian president was quoted as saying.

"They did a bad thing. Fortunately our experts discovered that and today they are not able [to do that] anymore," he said.

Western media reported last week, citing an International Atomic Energy Agency report, that technical problems forced Iran to shut down its Natanz facility on November 16.

Western powers suspect Iran of building nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful nuclear program, an accusation Tehran strongly denies.

Topics: Asia, Iran

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