Significant malfunctioning occurred in Iran’s nuclear program

Reports suggest that Iran has taken thousands of centrifuges offline in recent months and its nuclear program is known to have suffered significant delays due to a virus Stuxnet, AP reported.

Stuxnet is the first malicious program that targets key parts of industrial plants. Analysis by security firm Symantec suggest that Stuxnet was intended to wreck the centrifuges used to concentrate uranium - a key part of the nuclear power generation process.

Speculation about whether this was caused by Stuxnet came earlier this week from two sources - an unnamed official from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency and Olli Heinonen deputy director at the IAEA until August.

The anonymous official told AP that Western intelligence gathering suggested that Stuxnet had infected control systems in Iran's nuclear plants.