Israel was behind a cyberattack on Iran's nationwide fuel distribution system in late October that paralyzed the Islamic republic's 4,300 gas stations, two US defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the New York Times over the weekend.

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The attack came on the heels of previous cyberattacks in recent months, which shut down vital services and infrastructure in Iran – from disruptions to traffic lights and train services to water and electric supplies.

No one assumed responsibility for disabling the gas stations or for the previous attacks in Iran. In Tehran, too, officials were careful not to point a finger at the "usual suspects," although Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that a country with cyber-capabilities wanted to "make people angry by creating disorder and disruption." The foreign and Israeli press had already attributed the cyberattacks to Israel, saying their objective was to apply pressure on the Iranian regime and stall its nuclear progress.

In response to the alleged Israeli attack, the Iran-affiliated hacker group "BlackShadow" hacked the servers of Israeli internet company Cyberserve. The hackers shuttered the company's servers and threatened to leak data pertaining to hundreds of thousands of users.

Cyberserve is a web hosting company that provides servers and data storage for companies such as Kan public broadcaster, the Israel Lottery, Birthright, the Dan and Kavim public transportation companies, the Children's Museum in Holon, LGBTQ dating app "Atraf," tour booking company Pegasus, the Israeli Children's Museum, and dozens of other sites.

Israel also accused Iran of carrying out a cyberattack in early April on a minor water facility that sought to poison the water supply delivered to hundreds of thousands of homes in the greater Tel Aviv area.

Meanwhile, to get pumps back online, the NY Times reported, Iran's Oil Ministry had to send technicians to every gas station in the country. Once the pumps were reset, most stations could still sell only unsubsidized fuel, which is twice the price of subsidized fuel.

It took nearly two weeks to restore the subsidy network, which allots each vehicle 60 liters (about 16 gallons) a month at half price.

The alleged Israeli hack, however, may have been more serious than an inconvenience to motorists, the NY Times report speculated.

A senior manager in the Oil Ministry and an oil dealer with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to the NYT on the condition of anonymity "to avoid repercussions" said that officials were alarmed that the hackers had also seized control of the ministry's fuel storage tanks and may have gained access to data on international oil sales – a state secret that could expose how Iran evades international sanctions.

According to the NYT, because the oil ministry's computer servers contain such sensitive data, the system operates unconnected to the internet, leading to suspicions among Iranian officials that Israel may have had inside help.

Three senior Israeli officials, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss secret cyber issues, told the NY Times that Black Shadow was either part of the Iranian government or freelance hackers working for the government.

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Gas stations across Iran on Tuesday suffered through a widespread outage of a government system governing fuel subsidies, stopping sales in an incident that one semi-official news agency referred to as a cyberattack.

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Gholam Reza Jalali, the commander of Iran's Civil Defense Organization, accused Israel of carrying out the attack.

"The Zionists are behind the severe disruptions" to the country's gas stations. On Monday, Jalali said Israel was incapable of significantly harming Iran.

An Iranian state television account online shared images of long lines of cars waiting to fill up in Tehran. An Associated Press journalist also saw lines of cars at a Tehran gas station, with the pumps off and the station closed.

State TV did not explain what the issue was but said Oil Ministry officials were holding an "emergency meeting" to solve the technical problem.

The semi-official ISNA news agency, which called the incident a cyberattack, said it saw those trying to buy fuel with a government-issued card through the machines instead receive a message reading "cyberattack 64411," which is reportedly the digits comprising the phone number for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Most Iranians rely on those subsidies to fuel their vehicles, particularly amid the country's economic problems.

While ISNA didn't acknowledge the number's significance, that number is associated to a hotline run through the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that handles questions about Islamic law. ISNA later removed its reports.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the outage. However, the use of the number "64411" mirrored an attack in July targeting Iran's railroad system that also saw the number displayed. Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point later attributed the train attack to a group of hackers that called themselves Indra, after the Hindu god of war.

Indra previously targeted firms in Syria, where President Bashar Assad has held onto power through Iran's intervention in his country's grinding war.

Iran has faced a series of cyberattacks, including one that leaked video of abuses its notorious Evin prison in August.

The country disconnected much of its government infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus – widely believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation – disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the country's nuclear sites in the late 2000s.

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Clark was arrested in Tampa, where he will be prosecuted as an adult. He faces 30 felony charges.

Two men accused of benefiting from the hack – Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, UK, and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando – were charged separately in California federal court.

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Distancing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government from the alleged attempts to send malware to the mobile devices of a number of Whatsapp users, Israeli cabinet minister Ze'ev Elkin said that if anyone had done anything "forbidden" they could expect to find themselves in court.

"NSO is a private player using capabilities that Israelis have, thousands of people are in the cyber field, but there is no Israeli government involvement here, everyone understands that, this is not about the state of Israel," Elkin told the local 102.FM Tel Aviv Radio station.

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On Tuesday, WhatsApp sued NSO Group accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users across four continents in a hacking spree whose targets included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.

The Facebook-owned software giant alleges that NSO Group built and sold a hacking platform that exploited a flaw in WhatsApp-owned servers to help clients hack into the cellphones of at least 1,400 users between April 29, 2019, and May 10, 2019.

On Thursday Reuters reported that senior government officials in many U.S.-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used WhatsApp to take over users' phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company's investigation.

NSO has denied the allegations "in the strongest possible terms," saying it would fight them "vigorously."

WhatsApp is used by 1.5 billion people monthly and has often touted a high level of security, including end-to-end encrypted messages that cannot be deciphered by WhatsApp or other third parties.

In his radio interview, Elkin said: "I don't see any political fallout from this incident."

He added: "It is true that when people do things that are forbidden – I have no way of determining whether they did indeed do anything forbidden - then the justice system here and in other countries will throw the book at them.

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The hacking of Kan's website did not affect the regular television relay of the show on Tuesday night in Israel or abroad.

After the 41-country competition kicked off on Tuesday with a first semifinal, Kan's webcast cut to animated satellite footage showing explosions in Tel Aviv set to a menacing soundtrack.

Kan played down the hack, noting that the evening ended without further incident as Australia, Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, San Marino, Serbia and Slovenia made it through to Saturday's finals.

"We know that at a certain stage, there was an attempt, apparently by Hamas, to commandeer our digital broadcast," Kan CEO Eldad Koblenz told Army Radio. "But I am happy to say that within a few minutes we managed to assume control over this phenomenon."

Palestinians and their foreign BDS supporters have called, so far fruitlessly, on countries to shun the Tel Aviv songfest as part of wider efforts to isolate Israel internationally.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist terror group that controls the Gaza Strip, had no immediate comment.

Earlier this month, it launched hundreds of rockets from Gaza at Israel. Israel retaliated with dozens of airstrikes on the coastal enclave.

Many boycott calls have targeted Madonna, who arrived in Israel on Tuesday, ahead of the American pop star's guest performance at the Eurovision final.

The second semi-final is set for Thursday.

Rebuffing the pressure, Madonna said she would "never stop playing music to suit someone's political agenda."

The European Broadcasting Union, which oversees the contest, did not have a number to hand for worldwide viewers of Tuesday's show. But an EBU spokesman said that last year, a total of 186 million people watched both semi-finals and the finals.

Kan said on Wednesday that an Israeli truck driver injured a day earlier while unloading technical equipment in the parking lot of the Eurovision venue had died.

"Our thoughts and condolences go to his family," the broadcaster said in a statement, adding that it was working with authorities to ensure safety at the competition.

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