Iran acknowledged cyberattacks on two governmental departments

Pierluigi Paganini October 15, 2020

Iran ’s cybersecurity authority revealed that two governmental departments were hit by cyberattacks this week, state media reported.

State media reported on Thursday that Iran’s cybersecurity authority acknowledged cyberattacks on two unnamed governmental departments.

The state-owned IRAN daily newspaper revealed that the cyberattacks took place on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

Iranian authorities are investigating the attacks that were defined as important.

Other governmental departments temporarily took down their online operation as a precaution measure.

Iran’s cybersecurity authority did not attribute the attack to a specific threat actor

This isn’t the first time that Irans‘ authorities claim to have been targeted by cyber attacks. In December 2019, the Iran telecommunications minister announced for two times in a week to have foiled a cyber attack against its infrastructure.

At the time, the Iranian minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi confirmed that the attack was neutralized by the national cyber shield, it also added that the attack was launched by the China-linked APT27 group seeking for gathering intelligence its country.

In October 2019, Iran announced it was fearing retaliation from Western countries that are accusing it to carry out physical and cyber attacks against their infrastructure and countries in the Middle East.

At the time, Iran’s oil ministry said that the Government of Washington has launched a full-scale economic war” against the Islamic Republic in retaliation for the shooting down of a US drone as well as attacks on oil tankers that the US has blamed Iran.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated since 2018 when President Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran. The situation went out of control after a US drone strike killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January.

The order to kill Soleimani was issued by President Trump that said Soleimani was planning an “imminent” attack on US personnel in Baghdad.

In January, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued warnings about the possibility of cyber-attacks launched by Iran-linked threat actors. The attacks could be the response of Teheran after Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was killed by a U.S. drone airstrike at the Baghdad airport in Iraq.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Iran)

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