A top US cybersecurity official warned on Wednesday that the Stuxnet worm that infiltrated nuclear plants in Iran poses a dangerous new threat to the control systems of critical industries worldwide.
Sean McGurk, the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, described Stuxnet in testimony before a US Senate committee as a "game-changer."
Stuxnet, which was detected earlier this year, has "significantly changed the landscape of targeted cyberattacks," McGurk told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
"For us, to use a very overused term, it's a game-changer," he said.
Stuxnet targets computer control systems made by Germany's Siemens and commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other facilities.
Most of the Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear facilities, which many fear are part of a program to develop nuclear weapons.
Computer security firm Symantec said last week that Stuxnet may have been specifically designed to disrupt gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
McGurk declined to speculate about Stuxnet's origins or target.
But he expressed concern about its potential to essentially hijack the control systems of critical infrastructure.
"The concern for the future of Stuxnet is that the underlying code could be adapted to target a broader range of control systems in any number of critical infrastructure sectors," he said.
"These systems are used to operate physical processes that produce the goods and services that we rely upon, such as electricity, drinking water, and manufacturing," McGurk said.
"Although each of the critical infrastructure industries, from energy though water treatment, is vastly different, they all have one thing in common: they are dependent on control systems to monitor, control, and safeguard their processes," he said.
"A successful cyber attack on a control system could potentially result in physical damage, loss of life, and cascading effects that could disrupt services," McGurk added.
The UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions against Iran over Tehran's refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program. Tehran insists the program is only to provide fuel for civilian nuclear plants.
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