In 2010, Iran's nuclear facilities were infiltrated by Stuxnet, the centrifuge-wrecking malware allegedly cooked up by the US government. Now they seem to have been hit again by a bizarre attack forcing nuclear plant workstations to pump the song "Thunderstruck" by heavy metal band AC/DC through the speakers at full volume.
From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.
Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.
Facing mounting concern about Iran’s nuclear program, a top U.S. and Israeli technical team has developed a computer “malworm” designed to take down all of Iran’s computer software.
Leaders of the three major software companies, Sergey Brin at Google, Steve Ballmer at Microsoft and Larry Ellison at Oracle have been working with Israel’s top cyber warriors and have now come up with new version of a Stuxnet-like worm that can bring down Iran’s entire software networks if the Iranian regime gets too close to a breakout, according to U.S. intelligence sources. Google, Microsoft and Oracle had no comment on the issue.
>Without the ability to communicate safely and securely, the activists risk detention and social movements risk total suppression. Planning of demonstrations, boycotts, reporting of abuses to the outside world, and development of world-wide campaigns for human rights and women’s rights will not be possible in Iran without secure and speedy communication via the Internet, social networking sites, and mobile platforms.
The Comodohacker's boasting remarks are emblematic of the Iranian state’s strategy to break dissent: they exaggerate their action to create fear and pose threats to achieve their goals in the most efficient manner. He and they wish to shatter resilience in the face of oppression.
Comodo, Comodohacker, Elham Gheytanchi, Gerdab, Sepah, Stuxnet 
May Day Poster of Detained Labour Activists1900 GMT: The Battle Within. Another important snippet from the press conference of Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei (see 1448 GMT)....
Mohseni-Ejei said the managing director of the State news agency, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, had been summoned to court, and he stressed that the Ministry of Intelligence belongs to the "nezam" (system).
That is a sharp slap-down for the Ahmadinejad camp. Javanfekr was a Presidential advisor before taking over IRNA, and the news agency had backed Ahmadinejad's office over the forced resignation of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi.
Iran Video Special: Claimed Footage of Ahwaz Protests
The Latest from Iran (24 April): Noticing Syria
2125 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Mohammad Hossein Mozafari has been released from detention.
A court has confirmed the six-year sentence of teachers' union activist Rasoul Badaghi.
Security forces have raided the home of journalist Peyman Aref, who was arrested in June 2009 and sentenced in March 2010 to one year in prison. He was given temporary release for medical reasons in April.
2035 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Radio Zamaneh summarises the statement of families of political prisoners about the dire conditions for women detainees in the quarantine section of Evin Prison.
A few weeks ago we noticed a report on Stuxnet, "a worm that targets critical infrastructure companies doesn't just steal data, it leaves a back door that could be used to remotely and secretly control plant operations". While the report on a threat to hijack refineries and power plants mentioned Iran and India as targets but it also raised the possibility of US energy companies.
In following weeks, however, chatter arose that the worm had been developed by a state --- given its complexity, it was considered to be beyond an individual or even private group --- to cripple Iran's nuclear programme, whether through the Bushehr energy plant or the Natanz uranium enrichment complex.
We refrained from coverage, primarily because we thought the story of Tehran as the target for Stuxnet might be a psychological operation rather than a statement of fact --- after all, Iran's worry that it could be the focus of cyber-warfare might be as damaging as an actual operation.
Yesterday, however the scene changed. For the first time, Iranian officials said that Iran's industries had been infected by the worm; one minister gave a figure of 30,000.
Stuxnet 
