A report in the New York Times gives evidence that Stuxnet, the computer worm which appears to have done material damage to Iranian nuclear weapons development, was developed by an Israeli-US team at an Israeli facility.

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert has long been the reputed, but unacknowledged center for Israeli nuclear development. The Times cites "intelligence and military experts familiar with [Dimona's] operations" as saying that over the past 2 years Dimona has served as a testing facility for efforts to undermine Iranian nuclear weapons development.

Israel has acquired and tested, at Dimona, using centrifuges "virtually identical" to those used by Iran. This scenario is reasonable in that it explains how such sophisticated attack software worked when it finally reached its intended targets in Iran. Whoever wrote it had to test it, and they needed access to Siemens SCADA systems and centrifuges identical, or nearly so, to those used by Iran.

The Times also says that the vulnerabilities in the Siemens industrial control systems which operate the centrifuges were identified at the Idaho National Laboratory, one of the US Department of Energy's national laboratories. Siemens had provided equipment to the Idaho lab and cooperated with the research which was, says Siemens, intended to help Siemens defend against attacks.

No indications were given in the article about the origins of the 4 zero-day Windows vulnerabilities that helped to get Stuxnet on machines which could be used to attack the Siemens controllers.

The operation was originally authorized by President Bush at the end of his term and speeded up by President Obama.