Iran accused a foreign country - which it did not name - of being behind the large-scale cyber attack it was subjected to on Tuesday, October 26, 2021, and targeted the electronic systems of gas stations.
For years, Iran has been engaged in a mutual cyber war with Israel, in the context of the ongoing conflict between them over the Iranian nuclear project, and Tehran says it is on high alert against any electronic attacks that Tel Aviv may launch.
Some studies have pointed to the development of the cyber war between Iran and Israel, and the transformation of the conflict scene between the two sides, to include basic civilian infrastructure.
2004.. The Mossad plan
2004: Mossad chief Meir Dagan (2002-2010) and his deputy, Tamir Pardo, called for a meeting at Mossad headquarters, attended by leaders of other intelligence services ("Shin Bet" and "Aman") to discuss how to stop the Iranian nuclear project.
The assessment was that if Iran really wanted to build nuclear weapons, it would eventually succeed.
Accordingly, Dagan posed the following question: What can we do (to change that)?
At the end of the meeting, Dagan presented a set-point plan that did not ignore the importance of diplomatic pressure and the imposition of sanctions, but focused in particular on covert and qualitative operations;
Such as using Israel’s technological capabilities to launch cyber attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities, and carry out assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, and psychological warfare, which consists in showing Iran a weak and penetrating state unable to protect its facilities and scientists, and also unable to respond to Israeli attacks against it.
September 2010: Israel managed to infiltrate the Natanz reactor (400 km south of Tehran), in Isfahan, Iran, along with other Iranian nuclear facilities by introducing a sophisticated virus program codenamed "Stuxnet" into the computers that control Iran's centrifuges. to enrich uranium, causing chaos and spinning the centrifuges out of control.
February 2020: The Iranian Ministry of Communications announced that it had repelled a cyber-attack targeting Internet service providers, which disrupted network connectivity for about an hour.
May 2020: The Washington Post reported that Israel was behind an information attack on one of the two ports located in the city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran, in response to what the newspaper said was an Iranian cyber attack on Israeli civilian hydraulic installations. .
Iran accused the United States and Israel of being behind the attack, and a number of experts in the field of information security accused the American and Israeli intelligence services of masterminding it.
May 21, 2020: The official Israeli radio said that Iran targeted websites belonging to local authorities, private companies and restaurants with a cyber attack.
The attack showed a drawing of the city of Tel Aviv burning with anti-Israel messages, on the occasion of what Iran called "Quds Day", which falls on May 22 of each year.
July 2, 2020: The above-ground part of the Natanz facility was subjected to a massive fire, which caused the ongoing enrichment operations in this reactor to be halted, and the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization confirmed that the accident was caused by an act of sabotage.
The Israeli Channel 13, citing intelligence sources, indicated that the attack caused more damage than those announced by Iran, and added that “the cyber attack resulted in serious damage to the heart of Iran’s uranium enrichment program,” and that “repairing the damage may last a year or a few.” months at least.
Arik Barbing, the former head of the cybersecurity unit in the Shin Bet, said that the operation belonged to psychological warfare rather than sabotage to the Iranian reactor, and that it sought to convey a message that was repeatedly repeated to Iran, which is that Israel's ability to penetrate the most powerful facilities The vitality of Iran is undeniable.
April 11, 2021: An accident occurred at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, causing a power outage inside it.
- American and Israeli media quoted Israeli officials as saying that it was carried out by the Israeli Foreign Intelligence Service (Mossad).
Iran's Cyberspace Army
The Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij forces lead groups of militias and digital factions that they either directly belong to or owe allegiance to.
2005: A virtual entity was established called "Iran's Cyberspace Army", which is one of the digital arms that the regime uses to launch electronic attacks on the opposition and opponents of the regime in the world, or the major countries that stand in the way of the Iranian nuclear program and the development of ballistic missiles, or in other fields Intelligence and information gathering.
- Under President Hassan Wahani, the cyber budget has increased 12 times, making Iran one of the five major cyber powers in the world.
Israel is among the most active countries in the cyber field, according to the assertion of the head of the Israeli National Cyber Authority, Yigal Ona, who noted that the Iranians have long been engaged in large-scale attacks, including attacks to gather intelligence and operations designed to cause damage. The regime is large, and Iran is one of the few countries that has carried out devastating attacks.
According to a survey conducted by Microsoft in March 2019, an Iranian cyber group attack was documented during 2017 and 2018, on thousands of people and more than 200 companies around the world, causing huge damage estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.
April 2020: Israel accused Iran of being responsible for cyberattacks targeting water and sewage facilities, during which passwords for operating water pumping systems were controlled.
July 17, 2020: The Water Authority in Israel revealed that certain small sewage facilities in the agricultural sector were subjected to an attempted electronic hacking, and officials in Israel did not specify who was behind these attacks.
October 2020: A cyberattack targeted 9 government hospitals in Israel, causing complete paralysis of the computer system and information hacking of Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera, which provides medical services to about 500,000 citizens.
The October attack was preceded by targeting the Israeli local government computerized system, which contains information for 7 million citizens, and hacking the data of 700,000 citizens.
The attack was not claimed by Iran, but the accusation finger was pointed at it in light of the escalating electronic war between it and Israel.
The hacker group demanded a ransom of $10 million to return the encrypted and hacked information and data.
December 2020: The Israeli insurance company “Sherbit” had its servers hacked and hacked by the “Black Shadow” group, whose members Israelis believe are connected to or acting on behalf of a hostile state such as Iran, and stole personal information about hundreds of thousands of the company’s customers.
The Black Shadow group threatened the Israeli company to sell its personal information about Israelis to “hostile” parties or countries, after the company refused to pay a ransom of $4 million using the digital currency “Bitcoin”.
After the deadline passed and the Israeli company refused to submit to what it described as “blackmail”, the hacker group published nearly two thousand documents including hundreds of identity cards, personal details of some customers, work wage vouchers, and financial reports about the company.
The hacker group published hundreds of personal identification cards, hundreds of wage slips and documents from the stolen inventory, and they were messages that were transferred to the company via fax machines, knowing that the size of the electronic files stolen from the company’s servers is about a thousand gigabytes, while security estimates indicate that one The partners in the hacking operation is an Israeli.
Sherbet owns about 3% of insurance in Israel, with a capital estimated at $90 million and annual profits of about $10 million, according to the company’s reports for the year 2019.