Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi said in a short Twitter post that the alleged attack was "identified and defused by a cybersecurity shield," and that the "spying servers were identified and the hackers were also tracked." He did not elaborate.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Last Wednesday, Jahromi told the official IRNA news agency that a "massive" and "governmental" cyberattack also targeted Iran's electronic infrastructure. He provided no specifics on the purported attack except to say it was also defused and that a report would be released.

On Tuesday, the minister dismissed reports of hacking operations targeting Iranian banks, including local media reports that accounts of millions of customers of Iranian banks were hacked.

This is not the first time Iran says it has defused a cyberattack, though it has disconnected much of its 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.

In June, Washington officials said that US military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems as President Donald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike in response to Iran's downing of a US surveillance drone in the strategic Persian Gulf.

Tensions have escalated between the US and Iran ever since President Donald Trump withdrew America last year from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and began a policy of "maximum pressure." Iran has since been hit by multiple rounds of sanctions.

The post Iran says it defused 2nd cyberattack in less than a week appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

US officials told Reuters in October that the United States had carried out a secret cyber strike on Iran after the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which Washington and Riyadh blamed on Tehran. Iran denied involvement in the attacks, which were claimed by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

"We recently faced a highly organized and state-sponsored attack on our e-government infrastructure which was ... repelled by the country's security shield," Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran's minister for communications and information technology, was quoted by the semi-official Mehr news agency as saying.

"It was a very big attack," Azari-Jahromi said, adding that details would be revealed later.

It was not clear whether Azari-Jahromi was referring to the US cyberattack, which US officials said took place in late September and targeted Tehran's ability to spread "propaganda."

Asked about Reuters' October report of a cyberattack, Azari-Jahromi said then: "They must have dreamt it."

In late September, Iran reviewed security measures at its key Gulf oil and gas facilities, including preparedness for cyberattacks, following media reports of Washington weighing possible cyberattacks on Tehran.

The reported US cyber strike highlighted how President Donald Trump's administration has been trying to counter what it sees as Iranian aggression while avoiding an outright military conflict.

Iran has long been on alert over the threat of cyberattacks from abroad. The United States and Israel covertly sabotaged Iran's disputed nuclear program in 2009 and 2010 with the Stuxnet computer virus, which destroyed a number of Iranian centrifuges that were enriching uranium.

Tensions in the Gulf have escalated sharply since Trump last year withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed trade and financial sanctions on Tehran.

The post Iran says it foiled 'very big' foreign cyber attack appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

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.

The post Iran says it has developed a firewall against Stuxnet virus appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Israel has made no official comment on the accusations.

Last week, Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran's National Passive Defense Organization, said that his agency had "recently discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts ... and was trying to enter our systems."

Stuxnet is malware reportedly developed jointly by the U.S. and Israel to target Iran's nuclear program over a decade ago. The use of Stuxnet became public in 2010, after it significantly crippled operations at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility.

It was the first publicly known example of malware being used to attack industrial machinery.

"The Zionist regime [Israel], with its record of using cyberweapons such as the Stuxnet computer virus, launched a cyberattack on Iran on Monday to harm Iran's communication infrastructures, but thanks to our vigilant technical teams, it failed," Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said.

Iran plans to take legal action against Israel at international bodies, he added, without giving details.

His deputy, Hamid Fattahi, said more details would be revealed in the coming days, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week called for stepped up efforts to fight enemy "infiltration" in a speech to officials in charge of cyber defense, state television reported.

"In the face of the enemy's complex practices, our civil defense should… confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date action," he said.

The post Iran accuses Israel of failed cyberattack on telecom infrastructure appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.