BICOM

Iran’s commander of civil defence, Gholamreza Jalali, told reporters on Monday that Teheran had discovered a second computer virus intended to disrupt its nuclear programme. Iran attributes a previous virus, the Stuxnet computer worm discovered at the Bushehr reactor last year, to a joint Israeli-US campaign of sabotage against the Iranian nuclear programme. Jalali named the second claimed virus as ‘Stars’, and said that it was currently being analysed by Iranian experts. He did not specify the target of the new virus. Jahali added that the Stuxnet virus might still pose a risk, noting that such viruses have ‘a certain life span and can continue their activities in another way.’ The Bushehr reactor has still not become operational, having missed several deadlines. Some attribute this to the damage inflicted by the Stuxnet virus, though Iranian officials reject this claim.