The director of the Iranian military unit in charge of combating sabotage, Gholam Reza Jalali, claimed, “Iranian experts have enough knowledge to confront cyber threats, and the country’s nuclear facilities are immune to cyber attacks,” the Tehran Times reported.  

Jalali heads a military unit called Passive Defense, which was set up on the orders of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to ABC News.

While Iran does suffer from periodic cyber attacks, officials claim that the country poses the necessary technology needed to protect itself.

Jalali said that in addition to Stuxnet, Iran has discovered two espionage viruses, Stars and Doku.

Stuxnet was reported to have affected a limited number of centrifuges at Iran’s main nuclear facility in Natanz; however Iranian scientists said they were able to prevent it from causing significant damage. The virus Starts embeds itself in the file systems of government institutions, while Doku gathers information, ABC News reported.  

“Many viruses are produced in the world every day, and (Iran’s) cyber defense headquarters monitors them. So far there has been no destructive impact inside the country,” Jalali claimed.

Iran maintains that the computer virus attacks are part of an Israeli initiative to thwart the Iranian nuclear program.