Israeli intelligence services are trying to sabotage Iran’s military and nuclear programs through tainted equipment and cyber attacks, a recent report says.
Israeli officials, weary of Iran’s achievements in the nuclear field, have turned to cyber attacks to halt the country’s development, Israeli sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
The appeal of such a method was heightened after officials in Washington made clear that they are not willing to support an attack on key Iranian nuclear facilities.
“We came to the conclusion that, for our purposes, a key Iranian vulnerability is in its on-line information,” a recently retired Israeli security cabinet member said, using a generic term for digital networks. “We have acted accordingly.”
The report, quoting an unnamed Israeli source, says the attacks may also allow Israel’s intelligence agencies to do more than just acquiring classified information.
“Aside from accessing secret data, we could also set off deliberate explosions, just by programming a re-route of the pipelines,” the Shin Bet veteran said.
Another method of sabotage mentioned in the report was the use of malware — a commonly used abbreviation for ‘malicious software’ — to “corrupt, commandeer or crash the controls of sensitive sites like uranium enrichment plants”.
