INCREDIBLE UNDERREPORTING – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  What was the most underreported story of 2010?  Each of you will have a selection.  You could choose, say, the collusion between the far left and Islamic extremism.  Or, you might select Barack Obama's international contempt for democracy.  Good choices, both of them.

But here's my choice:  Stuxnet.  Stuxnet is computer malware so powerful that it has, according to authoritative reports, severely damaged Iran's nuclear program and set it back a few years.  The educated guessing is that Stuxnet was sent into cyber-battle by Israel, or a combination of Israel, the CIA and possibly another intelligence organization.  If the stories are correct, this is huge news, virtually ignored by the painstream media.  From InfoSecurity.com:

The Stuxnet worm likely took out around 1000 centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear fuel enrichment plant at Natanz, according to a recent report by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).

In late 2009 or early 2010, Iran decommissioned and replaced 1000 IR-I centrifuges at Natanz. “Although mechanical failures or operational problems have often been discussed as causing problems in the IR-1 centrifuges, the crashing of such a large number of centrifuges over a relatively short period of time could have resulted from an infection of the Stuxnet malware," the report judged...

...While the Iranian government has not said that Stuxnet attacked the Natanz plant, it has acknowledged that its nuclear facilities came under cyber attack. “They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a recent press conference.

That's the good news.  Here's the bad:

The Stuxnet malware is able to be used against industrial facilities in Western countries, including the US. “Countries hostile to the United States may feel justified in launching their own attacks against U.S. facilities, perhaps even using a modified Stuxnet code. Such an attack could shut down large portions of national power grids or other critical infrastructure using malware designed to target critical components inside a major system, causing a national emergency," the report warned.

COMMENT:  It's incredible that Stuxnet, a major technological development, hasn't gotten more press coverage.  You'll be hearing the name in the future.  Guaranteed.  I just hope it's when our side scores a victory. 

January 6, 2011