Iranian officials indicate they may pursue legal action in the aftermath of the Stuxnet attack, including taking on the company whose equipment was the target of the virus.
Gholam-Reza Jalali, head of the Iranian Passive Defense Organization, suggested Iran should seek legal remedy for the millions of dollars in damages to Iranian equipment.
Jalali suggested that the German-based Siemens corporation was responsible for providing the intelligence necessary for the development of the Stuxnet virus, and should be held liable in the matter.
The Stuxnet virus attacks are thought to have caused severe damage to Iranian uranium enrichment facilities and reportedly set back the nation's nuclear program by as much as several years.
Stuxnet is a highly sophisticated designer-virus that wreaks havoc with SCADA systems which provide operations control for critical infrastructure and production networks, and leading theories indicate that the malware was probably produced to stifle Iran's nuclear warhead ambitions.
The virus specifically targeted Siemens Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) used to control enrichment centrifuges.
"The research and inquiry into the matter indicates that the Stuxnet worm was disseminated from sources in the US and Israel," Jalali, stated.
"Iran's Foreign Ministry should probe into the political and legal aspects of the cyber attack while other Iranian bodies should pursue and complain to international circles... Siemens should explain why and how it provided the enemies with the codes for the SCADA software," Jalali suggested.
Jalali indicated that Iran has traced outgoing information from the Stuxnet infected systems to destinations in Israel and the United States.
"After following up the reports that were sent, it became clear that the final destinations (of these reports) were the Zionist regime and the American state of Texas," Jalali said.
Stuxnet was first identified in 2010, and both the New York Times and a German researcher have indicated that the source of the malicious code was a joint program administered by the U.S. and Israel.