Azernews.Az

Iran will hold eight defence exercises, including cyber defence during the coming week, head of Iran's Passive Defence Organisation, Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali said, Tasnim news agency reported.

He said that the exercises will be held at Iran's nuclear sites, Tehran's metro, the Iranian Radio and Television Organisation and at the ports.

Jalali said that the Passive Defence Organisation earlier held some cyber defence exercises on the country's bank systems and mobile phone operators, adding that some weak points were specified and the related organisations informed about the issue.

He also announced that Iran has opened a cyber-defence centre at the Natanz Nuclear Facility. Jalali also underlined that Iran is ready to foil any cyber-attack against the country's oil industry.

The organisation does not train hackers he said, confirming that Iran uses hackers during cyber defence exercises.

Various Iranian industrial, nuclear and government bodies have come under growing cyber-attacks during the past few years, widely believed to be designed and staged by the US and Israel.

A cyber-attack was carried out against Iran's oil ministry in the second month of the previous calendar year (April 21, 2012 - May 22, 2012).
Wide-scale cyber-attacks on Iranian facilities started in 2010 after the US and Israel tried to disrupt the operation of Iran's nuclear facilities through a worm which later came to be known as Stuxnet.

US intelligence officials revealed early in June that the Stuxnet malware was not only designed to disrupt Iran's nuclear programme, but was part of a wider campaign directed from Israel that included the assassination of the country's nuclear scientists.

Stuxnet is the first worm discovered that spies on and reprograms industrial systems. It is specifically written to attack SCADA systems which are used to control and monitor industrial processes.

The Islamic Republic confirmed that the computer worm Stuxnet infected 30,000 IP addresses in Iran , but denied reports it had damaged computer systems at the country's nuclear power plants.