The smell of closed gas stations, long lines and cyber warfare. On Tuesday, October 26, the digital card payment system used by Iranian drivers to purchase subsidized gasoline quotas-three times cheaper than market prices-was described by the Iranian authorities as “Network attacks”.
An attack “It may be a foreign work”, Said Abolhassan Firouzabadi, secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. If the Islamic Republic does not name the culprit, all Iran’s eyes will once again focus on Israel.
According to the National Petroleum Products Distribution Corporation, which was busy restoring the situation on Thursday, only 5% of the 4,300 gas stations across the country were reconnected to the network the next day, Wednesday. In some cities such as Isfahan, piracy has spread to road signs on highways, which shouted to the Supreme Leader of Iran: “Khamenei, where is our essence?” A direct reference to the incident in November 2019, when Iranians took to the streets to protest the tripling of fuel prices.
Fuel, a highly sensitive subject
The fuel issue is very sensitive. The October 26 attack was the fifth such attack in a year, a few days before the anniversary of the 2019 protests, and it has evolved into an uprising against a severely repressive regime. “Some people try to create chaos and destruction in people’s daily lives to irritate them”, The President of Iran and the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raïssi invested in early August. “The purpose of this operation is to disrupt people’s lives in order to achieve their specific goals.”
A mysterious organization called “Predator Birds” claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s cyber attack. On July 9, the attack on the railway network also came from the same incident.At the station, display the train timetable “Long delay”, Cancel the train and call the user to contact “64411”, The phone number belonging to the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the same number was displayed on the payment terminal of the hacked oil pump.
Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point analyzed the July attacks and concluded that there is a set of tools similar to those used in operations against multiple targets in 2019-2020.
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