US wanted to shut down North Korea nuclear program with Stuxnet variant

The United States would also target North Korea with the Stuxnet malware. It is suspected that the US previously used the malware to damage nuclear systems in Iran and Russia, among others, but this would not have been successful with North Korea.

Reuters claims on the basis of unnamed sources that the US has developed a variant of Stuxnet that should have disrupted North Korea’s nuclear program. The custom malware was created to recognize PCs with Korean language settings and then do its destructive work, Reuters said. However, the US would have failed to gain access to key North Korean systems.

The attacks on North Korean systems are said to have taken place five years ago. Dissemination of Stuxnet would have been complicated by the fact that the Stalinist country has isolated itself and has hardly any connections with the outside world. The Americans declined to comment on Reuters’ story.

Stuxnet is believed to have been developed by the United States and is known to have been used to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, among other things. Other targets were also hit, such as a Russian nuclear power plant.