[Iran Press TV] Russia's Ambassador to NATO has urged the organization to investigate the malicious malware that targeted some of the computer systems in Iran's nuclear sites.Stuxnet, first indentified by Iranian officials in June 2010, is a malware designed to infect computers using German industrial Siemens Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) -- a control system favored by industries that manage water supplies, oil rigs, and power plants.
In July 2010, media reports claimed that Stuxnet had targeted industrial computers around the globe with Iran being the main target of the attack, particularly the country's newly launched Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Dmitry Rogozin said the Stuxnet virus could have sparked a new "Chernobyl tragedy," by causing the centrifuges producing enriched uranium at the Bushehr power plant to spin out of control.
Chernobyl, an infamous nuclear accident of catastrophic proportions, occurred on 26 April 1986, at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine -- then part of the Soviet Union.
The steam kaboom'>kaboom and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind. Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and a further 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning.
"NATO should get down to investigating this matter," AFP quoted Rogozin as saying on Wednesday.
Iranian experts say the worm may have been created by a state-sponsored organization in the United States or Israel to target specific control software used in Iran's industrial sector, including the Bushehr plant -- the country's first nuclear power plant.
The New York Times reported on January 15 that Israel has tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm at its nuclear facility in Dimona complex in the Negev desert before releasing it.
The report quoted intelligence and military experts and officials as saying the effort to create Stuxnet computer worm was a joint US-Israeli project that also involved collaborations by Britain and Germany.
US and Israeli officials have claimed that their efforts to develop the destructive computer virus have dealt a blow to Iran's nuclear program and equaled to a military attack on the country's nuclear sites.
Iranian officials, however, refuted such claims and announced that Stuxnet was detected early by Iranian experts and had caused no serious damage to the country's industrial sites.
Reacting to the cyber attack, Iran's Telecommunications Minister Reza Taqipour said in November 2010, "Iranian computers are no longer facing [Stuxnet] threat."