Iran hit by new cyber attack

@ 2012/12/26
Iran claims to have repelled a fresh cyber attack on its industrial units in a southern province.

A local civil defence official said that "enemies" of the country had been carrying out nonstop attacks against its infrastructure.

The ISNA news agency quoted Ali Akbar Akhavan as saying that the virus had penetrated some manufacturing industries in Hormuzgan province, but thanks to the efforts of some skilled Iranian hackers its progress was halted.

Akhavan claimed that the malware was "Stuxnet-like" but did not elaborate. The virus had been placed inside machines over "past few months."

Iran is a little sensitive about malware attacks after Stuxnet, knocked out a big chunk of Iran's uranium enrichment operation.

IN this case the virus targeted Bandar Abbas Tavanir, which oversees electricity production and distribution in Hormuzgan and adjacent provinces.

However there is a lot of information in the announcement. It is not clear when the attacks started to happen, how the virus was spread and what damage it did.

According to Security Week, the matter was made muddier because soon after Akhavan’s announcement has been swiftly denied by er Akhavan himself. He claimed that he only held the press conference we announced readiness to confront cyber-attacks against Hormuzgan installations, which was mistakenly reported by the agencies as a cyber-attack having been foiled.

Iran blames the US and Israel for nearly every cyber attack that happens in the country. In April, it said a voracious virus attack had hit computers running key parts of its oil sector and succeeded in wiping data off official servers.

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