Stuxnet 2.0: Iran hit by new more aggressive variant of powerful industrial control malware

• A new, more aggressive and sophisticated variant of the Stuxnet malware reportedly targeted Iranian networks.
• It is still unclear as to which industries and companies were hit by the attack.

Iranian networks were recently reportedly hit by a new more powerful variant of the infamous Stuxnet malware. The new Stuxnet variant is allegedly more aggressive and sophisticated. The malware was first discovered eight years ago when it targeted Iran’s nuclear systems.

According to a local Israeli news outlet Hadashot, Iran “has admitted in the past few days that it is again facing a similar attack, from a more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated virus than before, that has hit infrastructure and strategic networks.”

On October 28, the head of Iran’s civil defense agency, Gholamreza Jalali, said that Iran had recently thwarted an attack leveraging a new Stuxnet variant, Reuters reported. “Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts ... and was trying to enter our systems,” Jalali reportedly said.

The original Stuxnet attack resulted in physically damaging Iran’s nuclear systems, damaging the centrifuges of in various Iranian nuclear facilities. The malware was designed to make it look like that the damages sustained by the centrifuges was caused by accidental malfunction, instead of a malicious attack. Sutxnet is believed to have been created and deployed by the US and Israel. However, it is unclear as to who orchestrated the new Stuxnet attack against Iran. It is also still unclear as to which industries and companies were hit by the attack.