It has been called “the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever created,” and new reports coming out about the Stuxnet virus say that although it didn’t stop Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon, it may have set back progress by several years, buying valuable time to halt the program without using military force.

Even more interesting, the virus is now said to have been a joint production of both U.S. and Israeli security agencies. The United States reportedly contributed knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the Siemens computers used by Iran, and Israel tested the virus on the centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium to produce its own substantial nuclear arsenal.

Whether these reports are confirmed or not, there seems little question that the virus has given Iran’s nuclear production program fits. According to descriptions of its effects, the virus not only caused nearly a thousand Iranian centrifuges to self-destruct, it sent false messages of normal operations to controllers so they wouldn’t interfere until the virus had done the maximum amout of damage.