The late unmasking of the suspected Stuxnet infiltrator

To this day, the Stuxnet attack of 2008 is considered a masterpiece among IT attacks, and many even consider it the “first shot in the cyber war” that has been raging worldwide ever since. At that time, a specially written malware disrupted the Iranian nuclear program at the Natan uranium facility. The program caused centrifuges to spin so wildly that they broke. So it jumped from the digital to the physical world of industrial plants. It is certain that the USA and Israel wanted to hinder the Iranian nuclear program with Stuxnet. Until now, it was unclear how exactly the program got into the control systems in Natans – and who introduced it there. This English-language article in Haaretz summarizes the elaborate new investigation by the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant (in Dutch), which recently managed a real scoop: according to the reporters, it was not an Iranian traitor, but a Dutch engineer working in the Middle East. The Dutch secret service recruited Erik van Sabban. Sabban therefore knew nothing about his role in the Stuxnet plan and was exploited. Because Dutch politics were apparently also left out, the case could now have repercussions. What also makes the case scary is that van Sabban died two weeks after his mission in a motorcycle accident in Dubai, where he was based. According to the research, there is no evidence that it was anything other than an accident. A real cyber crime. The story shows that when reporters stick around for a really long time to piece together a revelation, it’s worth it.