Iran Detects and Fights Back Duqu Virus in System

Iran said on Sunday it had detected the Duqu computer virus that experts say is based on Stuxnet, the so-called "cyber-weapon" discovered last year and believed to be aimed at sabotaging the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites.

The head of Iran's civil defense organization told the official IRNA news agency that computers at all main sites at risk were being checked and that Iran had developed anti-virus software to fight back the virus"We are in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus," Gholamreza Jalali, was quoted as saying. "The final report which says which organizations the virus has spread to and what its impacts are has not been completed yet."

While Stuxnet was aimed at crippling industrial control systems and may have destroyed some of the centrifuges Iran uses to enrich uranium, experts say Duqu appeared designed to gather data to make it easier to launch future cyber attacks."Duqu is essentially the precurson to a future Stuxnet-like attack," Symantec said in a report last month, adding that instead of being designed to sabotage an industrial control system, the new virus could gain remote access capabilities.

Iran also said in April that it had been targeted by a second computer virus, which it called "Stars". It was not clear if Stars and Duqu were related but Jalali had described Duqu as the third virus to hit Iran.

Iran has developed a software program that can “control” the newly discovered Duqu spyware, the director of Iran's Passive Defense Organization has announced.“The software, capable of controlling this virus (Duqu), has been provided to organizations and institutions,” IRNA quoted Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali (Right Picture ) as saying on Sunday. In July, media reports claimed that Stuxnet had targeted industrial computers around the globe, with Iran being the main target of the attack. The reports said Iran's newly launched Bushehr nuclear 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. 

“The (Iranian) cyber defense base is working round the clock to adopt the necessary measures to counter cyber attacks and the infiltration of spyware,” Jalili stated.