“The film Zero Days by Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney, which is set to premiere at the Berlin film festival on Wednesday, will claim that the U.S.–Israel ‘Stuxnet’ worm – which destroyed around 1 in 5 of the centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear program – was just a small part of a much larger set of offensive capabilities developed against the nation.
Citing at least five confidential U.S. military or intelligence sources with direct knowledge of the programs, the film claims:
• U.S. hackers working from the Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Fort Meade, Maryland, have penetrated huge swaths of Iran’s critical infrastructure, and were ready to launch disabling attacks alongside any military operation;
• Some within the State Department and the NSA expressed concern around the legality and ethics of some of these operations, which risked disabling civilian as well as military infrastructure;
• Israel modified the Stuxnet worm, targeted at Iranian nuclear facilities, making it far more aggressive, then unilaterally launched the new version. This was the one discovered by security researchers, who eventually traced it back to the two nations’ intelligence agencies;
• Intelligence from the UK’s GCHQ agency was used in deploying Stuxnet against Iranian facilities.”
