Iranian scientists have successfully neutralized the impact of a sophisticated malware designed to disrupt Tehran's nuclear program, says a recent report.

According to a draft report released by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), Iranian scientists have shown vigilance in keeping the virus from disrupting their low-enriched uranium production. 

“It did not stop … or even delay the continued buildup of low-enriched uranium," the ISIS report reads. 

In July 2010, Western and Israeli media claimed that the Stuxnet, a computer worm that is viewed as potentially the most destructive piece of computer malware discovered, has targeted industrial computers around the globe, with Iran identified as the main target of the attack. 

The reports insisted that the country's Bushehr power plant was at the center of the cyber attack. 

Iranian officials, however, dismissed such claims, saying that the Stuxnet was detected early by Iranian experts and thus caused no damage to the country's industrial sites. 


The Stuxnet malware causes extensive physical damage to centrifuges used in nuclear fuel production.

The virus is so sophisticated that experts believe it is the work of a highly-funded state-sponsored project. 

The New York Times reported in a detailed article in January that the Stuxnet was primarily an Israeli project specifically aimed at disrupting Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr. However, the highly secretive and sophisticated effort also involved cooperation as well as technical and financial assistance by the US, Britain and Germany. source