Iran said on Tuesday it had foiled a cyber-attack on the Islamic republic’s oil ministry, and that those behind the hacking attempt were based in the United States.
The Fars news agency cited Brigadier General Kamal Hadianfar (picture), head of the cyber police, as saying the unit had thwarted “the hackers’ attack on the oil ministry”.
He said the source of the attempt was in the United States, and that the US authorities had been informed.
he said, adding that “an international judicial order” had been sent to the United States, without elaborating.The IP address for these hackers was in America
Hadianfar said the hacking attempt took place over a four-day period at the start of the new Iranian year which began on March 20.
Iran’s controversial nuclear programme was the target of a 2010 cyber-attack by the Stuxnet virus, in a hack Tehran blamed on both the United States and Israel.
A February report by Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab spoke of a powerful cyber-spying tool that can tap into millions of computers worldwide through secretly installed malware, with many signs pointing to a US-led effort.
