A majority of Iran’s fuel stations went out of service on Monday following alleged cyberattacks by a hacking group that Tehran accuses of getting hyperlinks to Israel, native media reported.
Oil Minister Javad Owji earlier instructed Iranian state TV that companies had been disrupted at about 70% of Iran’s petrol stations and that exterior interference was a doable trigger.
Iran’s state TV news mentioned a hacker group dubbed “Gonjeshke Darande” or predatory sparrow claimed it was behind the disruption. Israeli native media retailers additionally reported the declare.
“This cyberattack was carried out in a controlled manner to avoid potential damage to emergency services,” the group mentioned in its assertion in line with Iranian media.
Iran’s civil protection company, which is chargeable for the nation’s cybersecurity, mentioned it was nonetheless contemplating all doable causes for the disruptions because it investigated.
Iranian state media added the that hackers group had previously claimed cyberattacks in opposition to Iranian petrol stations, rail networks and metal factories.
The petrol outages on Monday are the primary such incident since 2021, when a significant cyberattack in Iran disrupted the sale of gas, inflicting lengthy queues at stations throughout the nation.
Petrol pump costs in Iran are closely sponsored. Iran accused Israel and the United States of being behind these assaults.
The disruption started early Monday and was particularly acute in Tehran, forcing many petrol stations to function manually, Iranian media reported.
“At least 30% of gas stations are working, with the rest gradually resolving the disruption in services,” Owji mentioned. The nation has some 33,000 fuel stations.
Reza Navar, a spokesperson for Iran’s petrol stations affiliation, instructed the semi-official Fars news company {that a} software program situation was behind the disruption.
“A software problem with the fuel system has been confirmed in some stations across the country and experts are currently fixing the issue,” Navar mentioned.
Navar added that there was no gas provide scarcity however known as on drivers to not go to petrol stations.
The oil ministry earlier instructed state TV that the disruption was not linked to plans to extend the worth of gas, a coverage that brought about widespread protests in 2019 and led to violent repression.
State TV mentioned petrol stations had been looking for to offer gas manually and that it could take not less than six to seven hours to resolve the issues.
Israel has not but commented on the cyberattack in Iran.
Israel’s Cyber Unit on Monday mentioned Iran and Hezbollah had been behind an tried cyberattack on a hospital in northern Israel about three weeks in the past. It mentioned that the assault was thwarted however that the hackers had been capable of retrieve “some of the sensitive information stored in the hospital’s information systems.”
Iran disconnected a lot of its authorities infrastructure from the web after the Stuxnet laptop virus – extensively believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation – disrupted hundreds of Iranian centrifuges within the nation’s nuclear websites within the late 2000s.
Long sanctioned by the West, Iran faces difficulties in getting up-to-date {hardware} and software program, typically counting on Chinese-manufactured electronics or older methods not being patched by producers. That would make it simpler for a possible hacker to focus on. Pirated variations of Windows and different software program are frequent throughout Iran.
Source: www.dailysabah.com