by Yonah Jeremy Bob
A cyberattack in Iran messaged some hacked systems, addressing Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and demanding “where is the gas?”
Gas stations across Iran malfunctioned on Tuesday, reportedly due to a massive cyberattack, according to a mix of Iranian and Hebrew media sources.
With
the exact details still hazy, there is already rife speculation about
whether the purported cyberattack came from the US, Israel or a range of
local Iranian anti-regime groups.
According
to reports, messages were posted in some systems that were hacked
addressing Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directly and
demanding to know “where is the gas” – with the timing coming around two
years after nationwide protests of gas shortages in fall 2019.
Last
week, Iran carried out a complex and coordinated strike on US forces in
Syria, using up to five armed drones to strike at the Tanf garrison, a
key strategic point near the Jordanian and Iraqi border.
The attack was the latest in a series of such drone strikes on US forces.
Iran Gas prices 298.88 (credit: AP)In
a press briefing on Monday, US envoy to Iran Rob Malley referenced
potential upcoming US actions to deter Iranian aggression within the
region, while refusing to hint what those actions might be.
Washington
is considered the world’s greatest offensive cyber power by far but has
often been hesitant to use its offensive cyber capabilities against
groups other than ISIS, for fear of a cyber backlash.
Under the Trump administration, the US did hack certain major
Iranian intelligence sea-based operations to get the Islamic Republic to
back off from attacking American allies at sea.
But
the Biden administration has not done so to date, as it has focused on
building goodwill for a mutual return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Israel
reportedly hacked Iran's Shahid Rajaee port on May 9, 2020, as a
counter strike for an attempted Iranian cyber strike on Israel's water
supply the previous month.
Iran
has also accused the Mossad, the US and various European intelligence
agencies of using the STUXNET virus to hack its Natanz nuclear facility
in 2009-2010.
Former
Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cyber official Harel Menashri told
KAN radio on Tuesday that there was a good chance that the hacker would
have to be a nation-state to accomplish such a widespread hack.
However,
recent months have also seen amateur hackers cause major problems to
the US and European powers with sophisticated ransomware and other
attacks – and the Khamenei regime has many local enemies from Iran’s
many minorities.
In
August, Check Point Software Technologies issued a report stating that
an Iranian dissident group called Indra executed the mega hack on the
Islamic Republic’s train system on July 9, not Israel.
Check
Point said Indra’s hack of Iran’s train system was “an example for
go
vernments around the world of how a single group can create disruption
on critical infrastructure.”
Part
of what was so unusual about the attack was that it was a non-state
organization inflicting damage to Iran’s physical infrastructure on a
nation-state level.
If
non-state groups are traditionally thought of as lacking the capability
to do more than hack websites and data, this was an example of such a
group causing profound real-world damage.
Indra’s
tools destroyed data without direct means to recover it by using a
“wiper,” or malware designed to wipe the entire data system of critical
infrastructure, making the recovery process complicated, locking users
out of machines, changing passwords and replacing wallpapers to custom
messages crafted by attackers.
Part
of the attack included the posting of fake messages about train delays
and cancellations on terminal display boards across Iran.
Yonah Jeremy Bob
Source:https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iran-gas-stations-hit-by-cyber-attack-report-683141
No comments:
Post a Comment