Iran says Bushehr nuclear plant unaffected by Stuxnet virus

The world may now be waking up to the fact the first organised act of national cyber warfare, targeting industrial facilities in a number of countries may have taken place over the past year and continues even today. Although a number of countries, including India and Indonesia, appear to have been targeted, or may have become unwitting victims, the principal target appears to be Iran.

Iranian news agencies, quoting officials said the country's first nuclear power plant, the Bushehr facility is safe after confirming the fact that some of its industrial computers had been targeted by a computer worm. Officials said they were working to counter the cyber-attack. (See: Russian scientists raise alarm over Stuxnet damage at Iran's Bushehr N plant). 

A worm is a self-replicating piece of malicious software, or malware.

''The main systems of the Bushehr nuclear power plant have not been damaged,'' Mahmoud Jahfari, the plant's project manager, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency today. ''Investigations show that some private software of the power plant's employees have been contaminated.''

The cyber assault has had no impact on the operations of the plant, Jahfari said.

The IP addresses of 30,000 computer systems infected by the Stuxnet worm have been detected, state-run Mehr news agency reported earlier, citing Mahmoud Liaii, director of the Information Technology Council of the ministry of industries and mines.