Correct me if I’m wrong but stuxnet was designed for a purpose and it accomplished that purpose. Eventually being discovered was no doubt an understanding from the authors.
Compare that to unauthorized access to a machine and cleaning the logs behind you... One doesn’t have to be more brilliant than the authors of stuxnet to do something illegal without getting caught.
Given that the malware was seriously breaking shit, it wasn't all that hard to catch. I'm sure that at first they were looking for bugs, and thgen it became clear that it was too intentional.
Thats the belief but was it truly ever confirmed? I dont doubt it it sounds like a meme worthy of belief and I lean towards it but I dont recall ever finding a confirmation. Also saying they were caught implies the law caught them and arrested them.
As far as I know Stuxnet didn't break any US/Isreal laws. Of course it broke Iranian laws, though.
I think Obama said "no comment" to reporters, but then basically admits it by talking about how he regrets that this information got out into the public.
What would you consider as a confirmation? Without someone coming out and saying "we're the ones who did it", it's very unlikely that it'll be ever be confirmed.
The best you can do is to make some educated guesses (by looking at the timestamps, coding patterns, comments in the code, who might be interested in hacking the target, political connotation to the attacks etc.). That's usually how state-sponsored attacks get attributed.
For example, "Guccifer" used GTM+3 settings and attacked DNC a few hours after Trump publicly "hoped" that Russians will find the emails. That doesn't confirm that it was sponsored by Russia, but it makes it an educated guess.
Compare that to unauthorized access to a machine and cleaning the logs behind you... One doesn’t have to be more brilliant than the authors of stuxnet to do something illegal without getting caught.