World's First "Cyber Superweapon" Attacks China

A computer virus dubbed the world's "first cyber superweapon," which may have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities has found a new target -- China.
 
The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc in China, infecting millions of computers around the country, state media reported this week.

Stuxnet can break into computers that control machinery, allowing an attacker to assume control of critical systems like pumps, motors, alarms and valves.

It could make factory boilers explode, destroy gas pipelines or even cause a nuclear plant to malfunction.

The virus targets control systems made Siemens, which are commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities.

"This malware is specially designed to sabotage plants and damage industrial systems, instead of stealing personal data," an engineer at antivirus service provider Rising International Software told the Global Times.

"Once Stuxnet successfully penetrates factory computers in China, those industries may collapse, which would damage China's national security," he added.

Another expert at Rising International said the attacks had so far infected more than 6 million individual accounts and nearly 1,000 corporate accounts around the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The Stuxnet computer worm copies itself and sends itself on to other computers in a network.

It was found lurking on Siemens systems in India, Indonesia and Pakistan, but the heaviest infiltration appears to be in Iran, according to software security researchers.