Updates to this story
A cyber security expert familiar with the matter has told us Stuxnet likely originated from ongoing tensions between India and China.
The W32/Stuxnet-B worm, which has caused major problems in Iran and found on Siemens SCADA systems, is spread via USB sticks, networked file-sharing PCs or CDs. It takes advantage of a flaw in Windows Shell to attack the PCs running Siemens' WinCC software.
Viewing the contents of the USB stick triggers the worm, which has mainly been used to steal information rather than damage systems themselves.
As it had impacted the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, it was thought Iran could have been the intended target. Israel had emerged as the prime suspect.
Security experts familiar with government security have told TechEye that a very likely source is China, which could have developed the worm in a bid to breach its neighbour, India's, systems.
Along with Indonesia and Iran, India has had the most number of infections from Stuxnet. India and Iran had about 60,000 and 13,000 Stuxnet infections respectively until late September. Indonesia was at the third position with over 6,000 infections
"It's no secret that India sees China as a threat and of course China isn't a stranger when it comes to cyber threats. One reason why we think China could be behind the attack is because India had the highest number of infections from Stuxnet while Iran and Indonesia had less," a security expert told us.
"It is known the two countries are at a cyber war with each other and the fact that India was hit the most suggests China could have been behind this."
India has plenty of cybersecurity staff working on "defence". India is of course not green about possible cyber attacks. In August the country began to round up software professionals for the sole purpose of intelligence gathering and defence against attack from both friendly and hostile nations.
Our source also told us the attack could have been a misfire from the US or Israel.
"It's possible that India happened to get caught in the crossfire," he said.
He also pointed out that only PCs using a specific Siemen's software were infected, which are used by many Indian government agencies.
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It makes much more sense for Iran to be the target as Israel does regard Iran's nuclear industry to be a matter of life and death for the country.
Whereas, I could see why you'd want to use that particular attack vector when it comes to penetrating Iran's nuclear weapons program.
ref: http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6733370.cms
An example of this is a Bharat-Rakshak discussion thread about a black box installed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in the indigenously developed Arjun tank that documented the sabotage of its engines during trials by the Army; such sabotage has been the basis of the Army's rejection, on RAW's prompting, of the Arjun tank in favour of imports (as I have said India‘s Army is the collaborator Army that helped the British rule India and, even after Independence, all its regiments and units have retained their former identities and regularly celebrate the anniversaries of their founding by the British). A CIA-RAW operative, who serves as a moderator on Bharat-Rakshak and controls the forum, recently locked away this discussion thread so that numerous posts that had appeared documenting the sabotage of the Arjun tank were covered up. The major metropolitan newspapers, on most of which CIA-RAW exercises extensive control, have made no mention of the black box -- which was like the flight data recorder in aircraft -- installed by DRDO in Arjun tanks and the shocking findings about the sabotage even though a report on this was provided to them by the Indo Asian News Service (IANS).
There is across the board sabotage by various means by CIA-RAW to keep India down technologically, economically and militarily. RAW's grip over India is comparable to the old KGB's grip over the Soviet Union, with the difference that whereas the KGB worked for the good of the Soviet Union, except toward the end, RAW has always worked for its imperialist paymasters. The role of politicians in governing India is insignificant compared to that of CIA-RAW but RAW has no place in the public's consciousness or in discussions of public affairs in India. See my blog for a full treatment.