“Senior cyber-security figures have said the Stuxnet worm – the first to have been used to damage targets in the real world – could be used to attack any physical target which relies on computers.
The list of vulnerable installations is almost endless – they include power stations, food distribution networks, hospitals, traffic lights and even dams.
A senior IT security source said: ‘We have hard evidence that the virus is in the hands of bad guys – we can’t say any more than that but these people are highly motivated and highly skilled with a lot of money behind them.”