TEHRAN -- The chief executive officer of Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) said on Monday Iranian experts have employed an array of electronic warfare tactics to successfully hack three hostile aircraft as they were on reconnaissance missions in the country’s airspace.
“A while ago, a hostile aircraft breached our flight information region (FIR) and started emitting waves in order to collect information. We confronted the plane straight away. The enemy pilot thought there was a technical glitch with his aircraft system; so he contacted his command center and informed them of the problem and the decision to return. That communication is in our possession,” Brigadier General Amir Rastegari, whose company is a state-owned subsidiary of Iran’s Ministry of Defense, told Tasnim news agency.
In aviation, FIR is a specified region of airspace in which a flight information service and an alerting service (ALRS) are provided.
Rastegari added, “The following day, two more enemy aircraft flew over the area in close proximity to each other. We disrupted their activities in yet another hacking operation as we had already detected and uncovered the bandwidth.”
“As soon as we started jamming, the two planes realized that Iranian ground systems were disrupting them. They, therefore, informed their command center about the presence of a jamming system in the area and their inability to operate there,” he added.
Rastegari underscored that the capability now exists in all units of the Iranian Armed Forces, and Iranian forces can at anytime jam hostile aircraft from a distance of several hundred kilometers away.
The Iranian Defense Ministry official went on to say that Iran’s military technicians have been for years engaged in electronic warfare to protect the country’s airspace,