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Iran: Country under attack by second computer virus
By Thomas Erdbrink, Monday, April 25, 1:51 PM

TEHRAN — An Iranian military official said on Monday that the country has been attacked by a second computer virus, which he called part of a Western plan to sabotage Iran’s nuclear energy program.

The official Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency also reported Monday that a major 56-inch gas pipeline had exploded in the south of the country, a week after officials blamed two similar pipeline explosions on “acts of sabotage.” Authorities said pipe corrosion was apparently the cause of the Monday blast.

The same pipeline, which connects Iran’s biggest gas field to its largest gas refinery, also exploded under unexplained circumstances last year, the news agency’s Web site reported. There have been nearly a dozen such incidents in the past 18 months.

The new virus, which the Iranians have labeled an “espionage virus” called “Stars,” follows recent official acknowledgment that several nuclear facilities and industrial sites were targeted last year by the “Stuxnet virus,” which Iran blames on U.S. and Israeli intelligence services. Officials in both countries have declined to comment.

“The Stars virus has been presented to the laboratory but is still being investigated,” said Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads the Passive Defense Organization, which deals with countering sabotage.

According to a report by his organization, the virus mimics government computer files and is therefore difficult to destroy in its early stages. “No definite and final conclusions have been reached,” Jalali said in a report posted Monday on his organization’s Web site, paydarymelli.ir.

Last week, Iran reported significant progress in its nuclear energy program, including the testing of more advanced centrifuges.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged in November that several centrifuges, the core elements of Iran’s controversial nuclear enrichment program, had suffered from a computer virus, which is now widely accepted to have been Stuxnet.

Monday’s report also said that the Stuxnet virus still is not under complete control. “These viruses have a shelf life and can reappear and continue their activity in another form,” Jalali said.

In addition to the virus problems, there has also been a sharp increase in industrial incidents reported by Iranian media. Often they are blamed on accidents, but also increasingly on acts of sabotage.

The Islamic Republic News Agency said Monday’s pipeline incident caused a major blast in an uninhabited area between the Persian Gulf coast and the central Fars province.