Iran has developed software to protect its industry against the Stuxnet computer virus, the Iranian communications minister said on Thursday, after accusing Israel in November of a cyberattack on Tehran's telecommunications facilities.
Stuxnet, which is widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered in 2010 after it was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site. It was the first publicly known example of a virus being used to attack industrial machinery.
"Iran's university scientists have developed a firewall for industrial automation systems to neutralize industrial sabotage such as that caused by Stuxnet in power networks, and it was successfully tested," Communications Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi said, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.
In November, Azari Jahromi said that a Stuxnet attack had failed to harm Iran's communications infrastructures and accused Israel of being behind it.
Israel has declined to comment on whether or not it is involved in a cyberwar with Iran.
In 2013, researchers at Symantec Corp uncovered a version of the Stuxnet that was used to attack the Iranian nuclear program in 2007.
Tehran agreed under a 2015 deal to curb the program, but U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of it last year with Israel's backing and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
