The Tribune

OSCAR-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney believes the first atomic bomb of the cyberwarfare age has already been dropped.

That bomb was Stuxnet, a computer virus that is the subject of Gibney’s latest movie, “Zero Days”.

Stuxnet disrupted an Iranian uranium-enrichment facility beginning in 2010 and set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran considers Stuxnet part of a concerted effort by Israel and the United States to undermine its nuclear programme through covert operations, though neither government has acknowledged any involvement.

“Zero Days” is an examination of Stuxnet: how outside security researchers got wind of it, where it came from, and what it portends for global security in the future.

In the movie, Gibney warns of the destruction that could come from the proliferation of state-sponsored hacking. The movie opens on Friday in US cinema, online and through video on demand .

“The potential threat from these kinds of cyberweapons is huge, especially when you start talking about shutting down electric power grids,” Gibney, who won the Oscar for a documentary on Afghanistan and has also tackled WikiLeaks, Enron and Scientology, said.

He had one frustration in making the film. “I would have liked to have gotten more into the espionage stuff. I just really wasn’t able to figure out how the original version of Stuxnet got into the Iranian nuclear facility. We think it was a spy, but we don’t know exactly how it happened.”