Ex-general targeted over leak of Iran cyberattack

The former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is being investigated for allegedly leaking details of a U.S. computer virus attack on Iran's nuclear program in 2010, NBC News reported Thursday evening.

Retired Marine general James Cartwright, 63, a four-star general who was the second-highest ranking U.S. military officer 2007 to 2011, is being investigated for allegedly providing reporters with information about the covert Stuxnet operation, unidentified legal sources told the network.

The New York Times reported last year that Cartwright conceived and ran the "Olympic Games" cyberwar attack that temporarily disabled 1,000 centrifuges being used to enrich uranium. The campaign was created under President George W. Bush.

The virus became public in June 2010 after it somehow migrated from the Natanz nuclear plant and spread across the Internet, infecting millions of personal computers.

In November 2010, Iran's president acknowledged that malware had sabotaged his country's uranium-enrichment efforts but that the problems had been solved.

NBC's sources said that after initially investigating the White House, the FBI focused on Cartwright late last year.