13th July 2021, Kathmandu
Iran’s Transport Ministry has affirmed that its official website was hit by a cyberattack, that led the portal page of the Ministry and its affiliated pages to go offline.
Tehran, Iran’s Transport Ministry has stated that hackers got into the official website, causing the portal page of the Ministry and its affiliated pages to go down. Said that the computer systems and websites were affected by this cyberattack.
The ministry seemingly said in the declaration, the claimed attack pulled down the ministry’s website, and the links networked with it.
The matter is on the examination by technical specialists of the Ministry, as cited by Iranian news network Press TV.
According to the news source report, the service was disrupted before noon and the sites were still offline five hours later.
The Iranian Television channels described it as cyber-disruption as the incident took place a day after a cyberattack on a railway company.
The attack took place a day after turmoil grasped over train stations across the country due to a cyberattack aiming at the computer systems of the country’s national railway company, outlines Xinhua news agency.
On July 9, the train system of Iran apparently was under cyberattack, with a system designed to track trains failing and hackers displaying false messages on display boards across the country that claimed trains had been delayed or canceled. And the hackers posted the phone number of the country’s supreme Ali Khamenei as the number to call for information.
“Attackers had succeeded to infiltrate systems showing arrivals and departures”. reported Press TV. The hackers were able to attack the computer system of staff of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, which resulted in the unavailability of the ministry’s portal and sub-portal.
The purpose behind the hack is still unknown.
Iran said at late 2020, cyber-attackers had launched large-scale attacks on two of its government organizations, without providing detailed information on the victims of the suspected perpetrators. Recently, Iran has been a target as well as a source of aimed cyber-attacks which includes, state-sponsored hackers, risking the nuclear fuel production efforts.
Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s telecommunications Minister apprised on July 10 about the doable cyberattacks through ransomware. He requested government departments to be in close contact with information security agencies if they receive any ransomware messages.
It is still an unclear matter of fact, whether the announced attack caused any harm or disruptions in Iran’s computer and Internet systems, or was it the recent issues with U.S. and Iran’s cyber operations targeting one other.
The country is recently on high alert for online strikes, which it has censured in the past on the US and Israel. Meanwhile, the US and other western nations have blamed Iran for trying to break into their networks.