Washington, January 27: A former US National Security Agency director has confirmed that the US has repeatedly launched cyber attacks on the computer networks of other nations.
The former US director of national intelligence at the National Security Agency, Mike McConnell told Reuters this week that cyber war is more than a distant possibility as the US has already used the ability.
The US spy chief did not mention the names of the countries that have been hit with the US cyber warfare. However, when asked if US had the capability to destroy the computer system of an adversary, McConnell responded “Yes” and when asked if it worked, he confirmed “yes” as well.
Some experts believe the US and Israel are the culprits behind the virus Stuxnet that targeted computer systems in Iran in 2010.
Stuxnet, first indentified by Iranian officials in June of that year, is a malware designed to infect computers that manage water supplies, oilrigs, and power plants.
In July 2010, media reports claimed that Stuxnet had targeted industrial computers around the globe with Iran being the main target of the attack. They said the country’s newly launched Bushehr power plant was at the center of the cyber attack.
However, Iranian experts detected the worm in time, averting any damage to the country’s industrial sites and resources.
——Agencies