Iran's Bandar Abbas port, banking sector hit by major cyberattacks

Tehran: – Cyberattacks were launched on the port and banking sector linked to the Iranian government. Iran has confirmed the cyberattacks. But Iran avoided naming any country or organisation for these cyberattacks. Since the last few months, there has been a spate of suspicious blasts and fires in Iran. Surprisingly, Iran has not accused anyone of these incidents. Iran seems to have adopted the same policy regarding these cyberattacks.

The Iranian media was the first to inform that major cyberattacks were being carried out since the last two days, Tuesday and Wednesday. It was claimed that the Iranian port and banking sector were targeted in the cyberattacks. After that, the Iranian government clarified regarding the cyberattacks. The Iranian government accepted that certain important establishments in Iran came under cyberattacks. At the same time, the Iran government explained that some online government services had been closed due to security reasons. But the Iranian government avoided giving information regarding the sectors.

As per the information given in the Iranian media, there were cyberattacks on the computer systems at port Abbas. The attacks brought the functioning of the port to a grinding halt. Before this, the same port had come under cyberattacks in May. Israel has accused, in the past, that Iran is supplying weapons from this port to Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel Navy even carried out actions against some of these ships carrying weapons. It is said that this was the reason for targeting port Abbas. It is being predicted that this is the reason for the cyberattacks on port Abbas, even at this time. But the Iranian government has refrained from blaming any country or organisation for the attacks. But the government accepted that there have been cyberattacks on the Iranian systems over the last two days.

Iran had directly held the United States and Israel responsible for the cyberattacks in the past. In 2010, there had been a Stuxnet attack on the Iranian nuclear program. This attack rendered thousands of Iranian centrifuges useless, setting the Iranian nuclear program back by at least five years. Iran had accused the United States and Israel of being responsible for these attacks. Whereas, last year, the United States had carried out cyberattacks on Iran, accusing it of being responsible for the drone attack on the Saudi Arabian oil company, Aramco.

Meanwhile, there has been a spate of suspicious blasts and fires in Iran since the last few months. These include the explosion and the subsequent fire in the Natanz nuclear project. The US newspapers had accused that the cyberattacks and Israel were responsible for the attack. But Iran had avoided blaming Israel, dismissing the possibility of a cyberattack.