Cyberattacks Target Two Iranian Institutions

Date: 17 October 2020 - 22:09

News ID: ۸۳۹۳۵

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Hackers launched attacks on two Iranian government institutions this week, a senior official said on Thursday.
Some government bodies had since temporarily shut down internet services as a precaution, Abolqasem Sadeqi, from the government’s Information Technology Organization, told national TV.
"The cyber attacks which happened on Monday and Tuesday are under investigation,” Sadeqi said. They were "important and on a large scale,” he added.
One of the targets was the electronic infrastructure of the country’s ports, the Tasnim news agency reported Friday.
"Sworn enemies have been trying for some time to carry out cyberattacks,” a statement by the Ports and Maritime Organization said.
The statement said deterrent measures had been taken to prevent an interruption in the "organization’s missions.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology said the attack was not massive, adding it only targeted systems in two government agencies.
The information security agency MAHER said it had issued notices to various government departments demanding them to be prepared for potential cyber attacks.
The notices, however, did not mean that addressed government departments had been actually targeted by such attacks, it added.
"The incidence of the major cyber attack was merely related to two government organizations and responsible authorities are dealing with the issue,” said the statement.
The cyber security agency also said some government departments had independently decided to cut some of their services to carry out technical tests, a move which it said had come only "out of precaution”.
"Though from the view point of MAHER this measure was not deemed necessary,” it said.
Some of those cyber attacks have sought to influence routine but sensitive activities across the Iranian nuclear and energy infrastructure or disrupting the country’s core communication networks.
An explosion targeting one of Iran’s key nuclear sites in July was believed to be a result of such sabotage activity.
Iranian authorities announced at the time that the occupying regime of Israel could have played a role in the incident in the site in the central city of Natanz although they fell short of directly blaming the Tel Aviv regime for the explosion.
A large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that took place in early February was also dealt with swiftly as authorities were able to restore the network to normal within several hours.
Iran says it is on high alert for online assaults, which it has blamed in the past on the United States and other foreign regime, including Israel.
U.S. officials said in October 2019 that the United States had carried out a cyber attack on Iran.