Iran denies successful cyber attacks hit infrastructures of its oil sector

In the last hours, some western media reported destructive cyber attacks against infrastructures in the Iranian oil sector, but Iran denied it.

Last week drone attacks have hit two major oil facilities run by the state-owned company Aramco in Saudi Arabia, one of them is the Abqaiq site.

Western Governments and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the attacks.

Immediately after Saudi Arabia oil attacks, experts speculated an escalation of cyber attacks against Iranian oil infrastructure as retaliation.

Today Iran denied that its oil infrastructure had been successfully hit by a cyber attacks.

“Contrary to Western media claims, investigations done today show no successful cyber attack was made on the country’s oil installations and other crucial infrastructure,” reads a statement published by the government’s cyber security office.

Despite the statement, security experts believe that a cyber offensive against Iranian infrastructure is onoing.

According to NetBlocks, an organization that tracks internet outages, the country suffered limited intermittent disruptions of internet connectivity.

The cause of the outage affecting online industrial and government platforms is not clear, but it could be consistent with a cyber attack.

“Data are consistent with a cyber attack or unplanned technical incident on affected networks as opposed to a purposeful withdrawal or shutdown incident,” it added.

In June, after media reported a cyber offensive launched by the US against Iran, Teheran announced that alleged cyber attack against its infrastructure has ever succeeded.

The Iranian telecommunications minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi labeled the activity against its state as “cyber terrorism — such as Stuxnet — and unilateralism — such as sanctions”.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Iran, hacking)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.