by Ilan Gattegno and AP
Computer virus paralyzes Iranian oil terminals
on Kharg Island through which 80% of the country's oil exports are
shipped • Authorities set up "crisis management room" to contain the
damage • Iranian oil ministry: virus damaged data as well.
Kharg Island oil export
terminal. A computer virus shut down Iranian oil terminals.
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Photo credit: Getty Images  |
Iran reported Monday that its Oil Ministry
computers, as well as computers in the country's national oil company,
had come under cyberattack. The attack affected critical components
responsible for maintaining Iran's oil export industry, and forced
technicians to disconnect computers from the Internet and set up a
"crisis management room" to assess and control the damage.
According to Iran's semiofficial Mehr news
agency, the attack sabotaged a critical industry in Iran which provides
most of the country's income. Mehr quoted Hamdollah Mohammadnejad,
deputy oil minister in charge of civil defense, saying that a mainframe
computer on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf and computers at other
sites throughout the country were disconnected from the Internet on
Sunday.
Some 80 percent of Iran's daily 2.2 million
barrels of crude export goes through the Kharg facility, located off its
southern coast.
The report by Mehr said the disconnection went
smoothly, but Iran's ability to export oil was stymied. Mehr did not
reveal the source of the report and no other Iranian news agency
reported the incident.
According to Mehr, the Web pages of Iran's oil
ministry and national oil company were shut down for several hours on
Sunday, and as of Monday, the oil company's page was still down.
Oil Ministry spokesman Alireza Nikzad-Rahbar
told the Iranian SHANA news agency on Monday that the virus deleted data
in the server that hosted the Web pages. "It's not true that no damage
to data was caused. But only some user-related data was damaged," Rahbar
said.
Iran has so far not accused anyone of the
attack, but, as usual, the suspicion will mostly likely fall on Israel
and the U.S. Iran has been the victim of several cyberattacks in the
past, with the attacks mainly targeting the Islamic republic's nuclear
program.
In 2010, the Stutnex virus attacked computers
at the Bushehr nuclear plant and disrupted operations at the reactor. At
first Iran denied that centrifuges at the facility were affected by the
cyberattack, but officials later admitted that the attack had affected
16,000 computers at the site.
Iran reported other cyberattacks as well,
including an infection in April 2011 dubbed "Stars" and a spy virus
about which little is known but its name, "Doku."
Earlier this year, the head of Iran's civil
defense agency Gholam Reza Jalali said the country's energy sector has
been target of cyberattacks over the past two years.
Iran recently announced a series of cyber
defense measures spearheaded by the Revolutionary Guards - a unit which
already runs every key military program in Iran and many industries. In
March, the guard set up what it claims is a hack-proof communications
network for its high-level commanders.
Ultimately, Iran says it wants to set up a
completely local Internet that is also aimed at checking a "cultural
invasion" by enemies aimed at promoting dissent and undermining the
ruling system.
The current attack's level of sophistication
is unknown but experts believe it is strong enough to sow concern among
Iranian leaders because it targets the country's economic lifeline.
Ilan Gattegno and AP
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=4071
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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