Israel Matzav

Iran attacked by Viper

Iran has been attacked by a viper. But this viper is a computer virus, and it has attacked Iran's oil industry and the management of its oil exports.

Iran has confirmed that a cyber attack hit its Oil Ministry data systems. It claims there was no damage, but the National Iranian Oil Company website was inaccessible as of Monday.

Oil ministry spokesman Alireza Nikzad told the government-run Fars News Agency, "This cyber attack has not damaged the main data of the oil ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company since the general servers are separate from the main servers; even their cables are not linked to each other and are not linked to Internet service.

"We have a backup from all our main or secondary data, and there is no problem in this regard.”

He said the virus was identified as “Viper” and was aimed at deleting data off the servers. The attack was focused on the Kharg Island oil export terminal, where 2.2 million barrels of crude oil are transferred every day.

By Tuesday morning, however, Iran was singing a different tune.

According to Iranian media, over 50 of Tehran's top technical experts have been ordered to report to the ministry and assist in the "cyber battle."

The cyber attack, which has been ongoing throughout April, peaked on Sunday, when it took down several key computer systems in the Oil Ministry and corrupted the data stored on them in its entirety.

A virus was first detected inside the control systems of Kharg Island, which handles the vast majority of Iran's crude oil exports.

An Oil Ministry official said that it was still unclear whether the origin of the attack was external or internal.

Some Iranian media outlets ventured that the ministry may choose to shut down all non-vital systems for the near future to protect the Islamic Republic's crude exports while the problem was being resolved.

Now, who would want to attack Iran's oil exports? Hmmm.

Labels: computer virus, Iranian oil

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:16 PM