The worm was seen as such a threat that in November — two months after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced an Iranian nuclear facility had been hit by a cyber attack — the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a meeting called “Securing Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Stuxnet.”…

In that meeting, the President and CEO of the National Board of Information Security Examiners of the United States, Inc., Michael Assante said the worm stands as not only a “blueprint” for entities sophisticated enough to reproduce a Stuxnet-like attack — such as Russia or China — but “an attacker with less means” could still use parts of the code to wreak less-controlled havoc.

According to the Congressional report, “It is widely believe that terrorist organizations do not currently posses the capability or have [not] made the necessary arrangements with technically savvy organizations to develop a Stuxnet-type worm. However… Stuxnet’s design revelations may make it easier for terrorist organizations to develop such capabilities in the future.”

That would not be such a problem, Clarke said, “except for the fact that the thousands of computer networks that run our economy are essentially defenseless against sophisticated computer attacks.”