Today, Tuesday, Iranian state media reported that a cyber attack disrupted the information system of subsidized petrol stations, which led to long queues at gas stations across the country.

The official channel quoted the Supreme Council for National Security as saying that the defect was caused by a “cyber attack on the fuel distribution information system,” noting that “the details of the attack and its origin are under investigation.”

A spokeswoman for the Iranian Company for the Distribution of Oil Derivatives, Fatima Kahi, told state television that the company called for an "emergency meeting to solve the problem," while the television broadcast footage of closed stations, while cars lined up nearby.

The Iranian Fars News Agency indicated that the timing of today's attack is linked to the approaching anniversary of widespread protests that erupted in mid-November 2019, due to the decision to increase fuel prices, in the midst of a severe economic crisis.

Long queues of cars lined up at gas stations across Iran after the holidays (Reuters-Archive)

Previous attacks

In the past years, Iran has been the target of a number of attempted "cyber" attacks. In May 2020, the American "Washington Post" newspaper 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 it said. It is an Iranian cyber attack on Israeli civilian hydraulic installations.

In February of the same year, 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.

One of the most prominent cyber attacks that hit Iran dates back to September 2010, when the Stuxnet virus hit facilities related to its nuclear program, which led to a series of malfunctions in centrifuges for enriching uranium.

Iran accused the United States and Israel of being behind the attack.

A number of experts in the field of information security also accused the US and Israeli intelligence services of masterminding it.