Iran: Attempted Cyber Attack Against Nuclear Facilities Discovered
Iran says it discovered the existence of a planned cyber attack against its nuclear facilities earlier this week. America, England and Israel are said to be behind the planned attack. The virus used would have already been rendered harmless.
This was reported by Reuters news agency after reporting on Iranian state television. Heydar Moslehi, the head of Iran’s intelligence ministry, accuses the United States, Israel and the British security service MI6 of jointly mounting the attack. They allegedly planned to carry out the attack after talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group, which took place in Moscow on Tuesday.
Moslehi didn’t name the virus discovered, but there’s a good chance it’s Flame, an advanced trojan that emerged last month and is related to Stuxnet, a trojan that damaged part of Iran’s nuclear centrifuge in 2010. Iran says it has ‘defeated’ the discovered virus, although it is not clear what this means. The United States, Britain and Israel would still plan to carry out the attack at a later date, according to Iran, but the country says it has taken steps to repel such an attack.