Pirates have infiltrated key government infrastructure and computers in the Kingdom of Bahrain last month, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Sources close to those targeted by the attacks were quoted as saying that the breaches raised more fears than the normal level of activities that would span the entire region.
She explained that pirates have infiltrated the systems of the Bahrain National Security Agency, the country's main body of criminal investigation, in addition to the Ministry of Interior and the Office of the First Deputy Prime Minister.
Tests for their ability to shake
The newspaper said that the Bahraini authorities had identified on July 25 of the breaches of the electricity and water authorities, and that the attackers shut down several systems, which officials believed were tests of Iran's ability to destabilize Bahrain, citing a Bahraini official as saying that the Iranians have succeeded in controlling some systems .
At the time, the Bahrain Aluminum Company (ALBA), one of the world's largest metal smelting companies, was also under cyberattack, an official said, but an official denied that.
The report said that US officials confirmed cyber attacks in Bahrain, saying that at least three sides suffered from these attacks.
Intelligence
People familiar with the matter said that the Bahraini authorities did not attribute these attacks to Iran, but obtained intelligence from the United States and others indicating that Iran is behind them.
The report pointed out that the extent of the damage or whether the pirates were removed from the networks they targeted was not yet known.
The report quoted a spokesman for the Bahraini Interior Ministry in which he stressed the existence of strong guarantees to protect Bahrain's interests and basic public services from "increasingly complex external cyber attacks."
Millions of attacks
The spokesman also said that in the first half of 2019, Bahrain's Information and eGovernment Authority successfully intercepted more than 6 million attacks and more than 830,000 harmful e-mails, noting that the recent attacks did not result in interruption or disruption of government services.
An Iranian government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment, the newspaper said, adding that Iran has long maintained that it does not launch cyber attacks against its neighbors.
The newspaper pointed out that it had previously published that the "electronic command" of the US military launched in June, in coordination with the Central Command in the Middle East, cyber attacks on the computer systems of the Iranian intelligence to control the launch of missiles and missiles.