STUXNET was addressed by experts in 2010 due to its functions and complexities. This malware was designed to target special computers in Iran. Although STUXNET was released via the internet in the world, its destructive effects were limited to certain control systems targeted in Iran. Decoding this malware revealed that it had been designed and used as a weapon against Iran’s nuclear facilities to disrupt gas operation of centrifuges in the process of uranium enrichment. Due to purposes and effects of this malware, many compared it with an armed attack.

Militarization is perceived as the intentions of the military to intervene and overcome civilian procedures. The tendency for militarism generates from the military’ s ambition to be dominant over procedures not commonly perceived as military. It is described as an effort “ to make people accept and love war, and see it as ‘ normal’ ” (Lutz, 2009a, in Bickford, 2015) and is usually associated with high military expenditures. On the other hand, the emergence of cyberspace has opened new capacities and paradigmatic frameworks for conceptualization of sociopolitical phenomena. The present article is concerned with the US use of STUXNET against Iran’ s nuclear facilities in 2010. While being a cyber-tool in the US hostile foreign policy against Iran, the attack is discussed in the related literature as an act of cyber-war. This article argues that besides marking a cyber-tool in the US foreign policy against Iran, the attack was part of a long term militarization process in the US cyber strategy. Relying on dual-spacization’ s assumptions of physical-virtual reality and using theory-testing process-tracing as the research method, this article concludes that the militarization process whereby STUXNET was used as an alternative to kinetic attack on Iran, dual-spacized the nature of war.

One of the modern methods of conflict on the international stage is an attack that occurs in headstock of cyber space which can create widespread fatalities and vast damages. But fast changes in this area have caused international law not to legislate new rules fit for the protection of the cyber space. The concept of self-defense has been challenged under the attacks and in this area the possibility of exercising this right according to Article 51 of the UN Charter or customary international law, is an important question that has remained unanswered. It seems, if cyber-attacks penetrate into a country's vital infrastructure and potentially be destructive as an armed attack they will be assumed to be an act of aggression and the victim will have the right to self-defense. This essay will examine whether the right to self-defense is verifiable with regard to the particular case of STUXNET.

We are publishing the third volume of ISeCure, the ISC International Journal of Information Security, while the world encountering serious challenges on the cyber war as well as the security of the cyber space. The affirmation of the emergence and propagation of the new generation of intelligent malwares (such as STUXNET in industrial infrastructures) around the world in 2010, leads us to look after the future of cyber space security, which is described in the invited paper of this issue.