Iran reports cyberattack against two government institutions

Iranian media on Wednesday reported a “large-scale” cyberattack against two unspecified government institutions.

The attack did not cause any significant damage and was being investigated, said a spokesperson quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

Other reports in Iranian media earlier pointed to possible attacks on ports and banking.

The Intelli Times intelligence blog reported that according to information gathered from sources in Iran, a foreign entity attacked the billing systems and banking interfaces of the cargo docks in the civilian ports of southern Iran.

Earlier this year, a cyberattack targeted the shipping traffic at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port terminal. Computers that regulate the flow of vessels, trucks and goods all crashed at once, creating massive backups on waterways and roads leading to the facility.

US and foreign government officials subsequently said the attack was carried out by Israeli operatives, presumably in retaliation for an earlier attempt by Iran to penetrate computers that operate rural water distribution systems in Israel.

In December of 2019, Iran’s telecommunications minister said the country had defused a cyberattack which was “aimed at spying on government intelligence”.

Previously, it was reported that the US had launched a secret cyberattack against Iran. The attack reportedly wiped out a critical database used by Iran’s paramilitary arm to plot attacks against oil tankers and degraded Tehran’s ability to covertly target shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf.