A USB Drive Silently Destroyed Iran's Nuclear Program

[00:00:00]Did you know a USB drive once physically destroyed machines inside a nuclear facility and no one could figure out why for years? In 2010, [music] a piece of malware called Stuxnet was discovered spreading across computers worldwide, but it wasn't built to steal passwords or crash websites. It was built to break [music] things in the real world. The target was Iran's nuclear program, specifically the centrifuges [music] spinning uranium at the Natanz facility.

[00:00:26]The code was surgical. It secretly told the centrifuges [music] to spin too fast, tearing themselves apart from the inside. At the same time, it fed the operators [music] completely normal readings on their monitors. Iranian engineers watched their machines [music] fail over and over. They replaced parts.

[00:00:43]They blamed each other. They had no idea a ghost was living inside their systems.

[00:00:48]Months of nuclear progress erased by invisible hands. Security researchers who caught it spreading estimated [music] the worm took years and a nation-state budget to build. Most experts pointed to the United [music] States and Israel. Neither ever admitted a single thing. Leave your thoughts in the comments [music] below and subscribe for more.