Prof casts doubt on Stuxnet's accidental 'great escape' theory
An expert has challenged a top theory on how the infamous Stuxnet worm, best known for knackering Iranian lab equipment, somehow escaped into the wild.
New York Times journalist David Sanger wrote what's become the definitive account of how Stuxnet was jointly developed by a US-Israeli team. The sophisticated malware was deployed to sabotage high-speed centrifuges at Iran's nuclear fuel processing plant by infecting and commandeering the site's control systems.
According to Sanger's sources, an Iranian technician's laptop was plugged into a Stuxnet-sabotaged centrifuge and was infected by the malfunctioning equipment. The worm then "escaped into the wild" when the laptop was connected to the internet, granting the software nastie safe passage to the wider world, according to the newspaper journalist's contacts.
