News / Defense

US probably source of large-scale cyber attack on Iran’s infrastructure: Official

Friday, 14 February 2020 9:02 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 14 February 2020 10:05 AM ]

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks cause websites to become unreachable after an unusually large number of requests for information are sent to them, leading the servers that host them to fail.

A senior Iranian official says the large-scale cyber attack that recently targeted the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure probably originated from the United States.

On February 8, the Iranian internet service suffered hours of disruption in what telecoms authorities said was the result of DDoS cyber attack that was dealt with swiftly. The “powerful” distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack caused users to experience connection issues, according to officials.

Now Brigadier General Gholam-Reza Jalali, the head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, says the unsuccessful DDoS attack probably originated from the US.

“It’s very difficult and time-consuming to trace the source of a cyber attack. The Telecommunication Infrastructure Company is currently studying and looking for the source of the recent cyber attack against the country … but our analysis is that the US was the origin,” Jalali said in a televised interview on Thursday night.

“The Americans’ cyber attack has been foiled by our cyber defense unit,” he said, but at the same time warned that the recent attack might have been carried out to study the feasibility of a bigger attack.

“Since Americans failed to give a military response to our recent shoot-down of their unmanned aerial vehicle in the Iranian waters as well as our missile attack on Ain al-Assad base [in Iraq], they are responding to our country through continued economic pressure and cyber attacks,” Jalali noted.

“We have managed to control their cyber attacks, and they have failed to damage any section,” he said, adding, however, that the Islamic Republic must accelerate its efforts to launch its National Information Network in a bid to maintain services in case of bigger attacks.

Iran says dealt with large-scale DDoS cyber attack

Iranian telecoms authorities say a DDoS cyber attack was dealt with on Saturday.

Although the February 8 DDoS attack was dealt with immediately using the Iranian Information Technology Fortress, known as DEJFA, it still affected several service providers in Iran, including two notable mobile operators.

DDoS attackers normally use hijacked or virus-infected computers to target websites. During such attacks, websites become unreachable after an unusually large number of requests for information are sent to them, causing the servers that host them to fail.

Iran had previously reported cyber attacks sponsored by the United States and the Israeli regime that has targeted its key information infrastructure.

DDoS attacks in September targeted Iranian websites that were involved in cryptocurrency trade. Authorities said those attacks were 20 times more powerful than similar attacks in other countries.

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