Iran Slams Enemy Cyber Attack
(FNA)- Iran indirectly accused Israel of using a sophisticated malicious computer program to collect information from the Islamic Republic as a UN agency warned that the Flame virus could be a more serious threat than Stuxnet.
"Some countries and illegitimate regimes are used to producing viruses," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast told reporters on Tuesday when asked about a malware, codenamed Flame.
His comments are seen as a clear reference to Israel. "Such acts of cyberwar would not damage Iran's computer systems," he said.
Meantime, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon acknowledged the Zionist regime's cyber war attack on Iran, including developing malicious softwares to damage sensitive Iranian data and computers.
According to a report posted by Israeli daily Jerusalem post, in comments that proved Israel is behind the "Flame" virus, Ya'alon on Tuesday said that "whoever sees the Iranian threat as a serious threat would be likely to take different steps, including these, in order to hurt them."
Speaking in an interview with Army Radio, Ya'alon further hinted that Jerusalem was behind the cyber attack, took alleged credit for his regime by saying that Israel a technological power.
"These achievements of ours open up all kinds of possibilities for us," Ya'alon added.
Also on Tuesday, officials at the UN agency charged with helping member nations secure their national infrastructures, said it plans to issue a sharp warning about the risk of the Flame virus.
"This is the most serious (cyber) warning we have ever put out," Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator for the UN's Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union, told Reuters. "I think it is a much more serious threat than Stuxnet," Obiso said.
The confidential warning will tell member nations that the Flame virus is dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure, he said in an interview. "They should be on alert," he said.
The US and Israel have made repeated attempts in the last several years to damage Iran's nuclear and industrial sites through web infiltration and computer malwares.
Computers of some Iranian nuclear sites were attacked by the Stuxnet virus, the first known computer worm discovered in 2010 to target industrial controls.