What’s Behind Iran’s Latest Cyberattacks on Gas Stations?

Published October 27th, 2021 - 12:16 GMT
Iranian gas stations were hit by a cyberattack yesterday.
Iranian drivers fill their tanks at a gas station in the capital Tehran on November 5, 2018. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic republic "will proudly bypass sanctions" by the United States that took effect on Monday targeting the country's oil and financial sectors. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Highlights
Iranian president said that the attack against gas stations aims at causing unrest in the countrny.

Iranian gas stations were hit by a cyberattack that defunctionated fuel system in the country. According to the National Virtual Space Center, the cyberattack on gas stations had targeted the online fuel delivery system in Iran.

According to local media, gas stations in the country have gone back to normal work following the cyberattack. However, the real group or reason behind the cyberattack is still a mystery.

Some people have claimed that the cyberattack was to denounce the fuel prices hike in the country and after a billboard in the middle of an Iranian street was hacked with a question directed to the country’s president Ebrahim Raisi.

Multiple billboards were also hacked in Iran’s Isfahan and the hackers wrote: “Khamenei, where is our fuel?”.

Iranian president Raise has denounced the cyberattack against the county’s gas stations adding that it aims to create chaos and disorder in Tehran. Authorities have also blamed a foreign country without mentioning its name that is likely behind the gas stations hack.

The head of Supreme Cyberspace Council, Abolhassan Firouzabadi, announced that it’s not yet the time to say or determine which country carried out the attack revealing that authorities are currently probing the incident.

On the other hand, an Israeli newspaper said that a group of Iranian hackers have shared secret information files belonging to the occupation army, containing the data of hundreds of soldiers.

Ynet website reported that a group of Iranians who refer to themselves as "Moses Staff" has published a file that includes the full details of the combat battalion forces in the Israeli army.

In November last year, deadly protests took place in Iran following a sudden, massive increase in the price of gasoline that was between ‘50%–200%’. The protests were considered as the deadliest anti-government protests since the 1979 revolution.

The 2019–2020 Iranian protests, also known as the Bloody November, were a series of nationwide civil protests across the country. About 1,500 Iranian protesters were killed during massive-deadly demonstrations.

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