Baku, Azerbaijan, April 29
Trend:
Over 296 serious cyber attacks were carried out against Iran’s infrastructures in last fiscal year, ended March 2018, Brigadier General Seyed Kamal Hadianfar, head of Iran’s Cyber Police (FATA) said.
The police commander said that over 50 percent of the attacks were originated from the US and China, meanwhile 30 percent of the cyber attacks were from Europian countries, including Germany and Netherlands, the FATA website reported April 29.
Hadianfar added that Iran’s banks and financial institutes are the main target of attacks, followed by telecommunication infrastructure, power, energy, oil and gas sectors.
At least 11 of 32 Iranian banks with highest financial turnover were the target of cyber attacks in last fiscal year, he said.
Averagely 6-7 million cyber attacks are carried out to Iran on a daily basis, Hadianfar said, adding that the attacks generally are thwarted and fail to impose damage against the countries’ infrastructures and systems.
Iranian official sites were target of various cyber attacks in recent years. In June at least 50 websites belonging to Iran's Foreign Ministry were hacked by an allegedly Saudi group called itself "Team Bad Dream."
On May 24, 2016 a group calling itself "DAES" hacked the website of the Statistical Center of Iran, sending the website down for a short time. Two days later the websites of Iran's Culture Ministry, the legal deputy of the Judiciary and the interpreting administration of the Judiciary were hacked as well.
Iran’s oil industry was also damaged as a result of various cyber attacks previously. In April 2012 a virus forced the oil ministry to disconnect its main oil terminals and facilities from the Internet to protect them from damage.
In 2015, Iran accused the US of cyber attacks against the Iranian oil ministry website. The attacks continued for four days during the holidays of Iranian New Year (started on March 21, 2015).
Meanwhile the US, on the other hand accuses Iran of conducting cyber-attacks against the United States.
Earlier in March Washington charged nine Iranians and an Iranian company with attempting to hack into hundreds of US and international universities, dozens of companies and parts of the US government on behalf of the Tehran government.