ICT Minister: US Cyberattacks Unsuccessful

EghtesadOnline: The United States' cyberattacks on Iranian targets have not been successful, the minister of communication and information technology said, following reports about Pentagon's attack on the country's rocket launch systems.

News ID: ۷۴۷۶۶۹

25 June 2019

On Thursday, Yahoo News cited American officials as saying that the US military had mounted a cyberattack to disable Iranian computer systems controlling its rocket and missile launchers.

"Not one attack; we neutralized 33 million attacks with the Dejfa firewall last year,” ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi wrote on his Twitter account, referring to Iran's national firewall that has been developed under a broader cybersecurity project codenamed Digital Fortress (Dejfa in Persian), IRNA reported.

The firewall is aimed at protecting the country’s industrial infrastructure against cyberattacks like Stuxnet, according to Financial Tribune.

"They have not carried out a successful attack, although they try hard," Jahromi added.

He did not directly confirm the report, but tweeted that Iran has been facing cyber-terrorism for a long time.

"Media asked if the claimed cyberattacks against Iran are true. I must say we have been facing cyber-terrorism–like Stuxnet–and unilateralism–like sanctions–for a long time."

Stuxnet was the first publicly known example of a virus used to attack industrial machinery, which targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in November 2007. It is widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel.

US President Donald Trump has also imposed sweeping sanctions on Tehran after unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers last year.

The already strained relations between the two have worsened since then.