After a two-year investigation into the small print surrounding the Stuxnet virus, unleashed in 2008 towards the Iranian nuclear program, journalists with Dutch newspaper Volkskrant have launched a report saying the malware value $1 billion to develop.
Apart from the big price ticket, the outlet mentioned a Dutch spy was used to launch the Stuxnet virus into the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The Dutch authorities advised Volkskrant that the federal government understood the then-36-year-old Erik van Sabben was working to sabotage the Iranian nuclear venture, nonetheless there was no data of a cyber weapon of Stuxnet’s consequence getting used as a part of the proceedings.
The report detailed that Van Stabben, working as an Iranian engineer, accessed an underground nuclear facility within the metropolis of Natanz and put in the Stuxnet virus, in the end damaging nuclear centrifuges and setting again the trouble by “a number of years,” it mentioned. The malware was most probably hidden in a water pump he put in, the report concluded.
Van Stabben died simply two weeks later in a motorbike accident in Dubai, the report added. It stays unclear whether or not he was conscious of his function in deploying Stuxnet. No foul play was suspected in Van Stabben’s dying.
