Oscar winner Alex Gibney said today he hopes his new documentary "Zero Days" exposing the secret scope of the US cyber warfare programme will "rattle some cages" to trigger a debate about a global IT arms race.
"Zero Days", premiering in competition at the Berlin film festival, cites intelligence sources as saying the United States and Israel developed a much broader plan for cyber operations against Iran than originally thought.
Iran's nuclear refining facilities were temporarily hobbled in 2010 by a virus called Stuxnet, which is suspected to have been developed by the United States and Israel, although neither government has acknowledge it.
It was believed to be the first virus designed not just to steal information or hijack computers, but to damage equipment.
However Gibney's film quotes anonymous CIA and NSA operatives describing a covert cyber operation called "Nitro Zeus" that would have gone much further, harming Iranian civilian and military infrastructure if diplomatic efforts to curb its nuclear programme had failed, prompting a military conflict.
The contingency plan using malware was put in place in case Israel launched a unilateral strike against Iran, drawing the United States into a war, according to Gibney's sources.
Any cyber attack, which could be carried out without any "boots on the ground", would require personal authorisation by the US president.
According to the film, "Nitro Zeus" was put on ice after Iran and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany agreed last July to have sanctions lifted in return for Tehran ensuring its nuclear programme remains for civilian use.
Gibney, 62, is best known for the 2007 Academy Award-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side" about the US military's use of torture, his 2013 film "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" and last year's "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief".
