The Air Gap Attack on Iran's Nuclear Program

Stuxnet targeted computers responsible for controlling centrifuges used to refine uranium in Iran's nuclear program. The malware would interrupt this chain of command between the computer system responsible for governing the centrifuge and the centrifuge itself. This had a dual effect: For one thing, it would cause the centrifuges to wear out faster and to fail more frequently. But there was a major obstacle in the way of carrying through with this attack because the target systems were an air gap system.