Some clumsy coding discovered during an analysis of the Shamoon malware has led researchers to conclude that it is probably not related to the Wiper malware that hit some Iranian networks recently. A prime error appears to come from the main executable the dropper which in some systems is launched as a service to create a scheduled task, only the programming works incorrectly due to the date August 15, 2012 being hard-coded into the malware. Wiper was the name researchers gave to malware that was discovered earlier this summer on some networks in Iran erasing data from infected machines.
Source: https://threatpost.com/flaws-shamoon-malware-reinforce-theory-its-not-wiper-variant-082212/76937/