Originally discovered in the summer of 2010, Stuxnet is widely known to have targeted centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, with the goal of slowing the nation’s production of enriched uranium.
Now, Symantec’s research has determined that other parts of the facilities could have been targeted, or that the earlier version of the infamous cyber weapon at least had the capabilities to target other industrial components at Natanz.
According to Symantec, Stuxnet Version 0.5, an earlier and less sophisticated version of Stuxnet, was designed to close crucial valves that feed uranium hexafluoride gas into the centrifuges, causing serious damage to the centrifuges and the uranium enrichment system as a whole.