Iran thwarts a Wave of Cyber Attacks by Israel

Iran has successfully thwarted a wave of cyber attacks apparently staged by Israel to target the country’s communications infrastructure, saying it will certainly follow up on the “hostile” scheme via international mechanisms.

Hamid Fatahi, CEO of Iran’s Telecommunications Company, reported an attempt by “an occupying regime” to launch “sporadic” cyber assaults against the Islamic Republic’s communications infrastructure, in reference to the regime in Tel Aviv.

“They showed to the International community that their accusation against Iran for Cyber Attacks was just a ridiculous delusion, saying defeating the attackers had been such an easy feat for Iranian experts.

The regime – with a notorious background in using cyber weapons in cases such as Stuxnet – was this time attempting to harm Iran’s communications infrastructure.”

Israel is widely believed to be behind a cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear energy program that took place in 2011. It was the first publicly known example of a virus being used to attack industrial machinery.

The Washington Post reported in June 2012 that US spy services and Israel’s military had worked together to launch the Stuxnet computer virus against a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.

Since Stuxnet’s discovery in 2010, security researchers have uncovered a handful of other sophisticated pieces of computer code they believe were developed by the USA and Israel to help them engage in espionage and warfare.

The latest virtual acts of aggression against Iran coincide with the re-imposition of a new wave of US sanctions mainly targeting Iran’s energy sector, months after Washington defied the world community and scrapped a multinational nuclear deal with Tehran– against which Israel has been lobbying intensely.

Back in June, the ex-chief of an Israeli spy service called Unit 8200, Ehud Schnerosen, had said that the first cyber target in any future conflict with Iran should be its energy infrastructure.

Iran’s minister of communications and information technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahrom says some of the country’s databases have come under cyber attacks, but notes that almost all targeted routers have been salvaged.

Last year, a ransome-ware, known as “WannaCry,” struck computers in dozens of countries, including Iran, prompting Cyber Police to urge that affected systems be cut off networks.

PressTV / ABC Flash Point Cyber News 2018.