Iran has foiled a cyber attack against the oil ministry

Iran – The Cyber Attacks Emergency Center in FATA has thwarted a major cyber attack  originated from US against the Oil Ministry.

The Iranian Government announced that on Tuesday it had foiled a cyber-attack on the Islamic republic’s Oil Ministry.

According to the Fars news agency, the Brigadier General Kamal Hadianfar, head of the cyber police, confirmed that his unit had foiled an attack that started from the United States, the official confirmed “the hackers’ attack on the Oil Ministry”.

“Hadianfar said that the cyber attack was waged against the oil ministry during the four-day holidays (possibly March 21-24) but failed following the swift action FATA’s emergency center.” reported The Fars news agency.

Hadianfar reported that the cyber attack occurred over a four-day period at the start of the new Iranian year which began on March 20.

“The Cyber Attacks Emergency Center in FATA could thwart hackers’ attack against the oil ministry,” Hadianfar said, addressing a forum on cyber crimes in Tehran on Tuesday.

“These hackers were from the US and we informed them (the US officials) of the issue in an official letter and also issued an international judicial order and the issue is now being pursued by the foreign ministry,” he added.

The official added that the Government of Teheran has already reported the attempt of attack to the US authorities.

“The IP address for these hackers was in America,” Hadianfar said, confirming that his Government issued “an international judicial order” to the United States.

It is not the first time a critical infrastructure of the country is targeted by foreign hackers. Clamorous the Stuxnet attack conducted in a joint effort by the US and Israel cyber units with the intent to interfere with the Iranian nuclear programme.

On April 2012, the Iran’s Oil Ministry was hit by a cyber attack that wiped data from the hard disks of infected systems.

In December 2012, Teheran announced that it had thwarted for the second time a cyber attack on one of its Culture Ministry institutes.

In February, Senior Military Aide to the Supreme Leader Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi revealed that Iranian cyber army has foiled numerous cyber attacks against scientific and industrial infrastructures of the country.

“Our enemies have done many cyber war actions and of course the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces have also made eye-catching progress in area of cyber warfare and have been able to give proper responses to the enemies at different times,” he added.

Also in October 2013, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General HosseinDehqan warned of possible major cyber attacks against the Iran, since 2013 the Iranian Government is improving its cyber capabilities faster than experts ‘would have ever imagined’ and increased cyber-security spending 12-fold since2013.

“The cyber war is serious; today, information technology has been institutionalized in all bodies and the enemy come in control over this system, it may destroy it,”  Dehqan said, addressing a conference on Civil Defense in Tehran.

Intelligence experts and malware researchers have confirmed several times that the Iranian Government has dangerous cyber capabilities. In December 2014, experts at security firm Cylance uncovered a cyber-espionage operation dubbed “Cleaver,” which was managed by Iran-based hackers linked to the Government. Cylance revealed that Iranian hackers target airlines, military, energy, defense companies worldwide

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  Iran, state-sponsored-hacking)