Iran accuses Israel of launching cyber attacks targeting telecoms infrastructure

Allegations ratchet-up as the US imposes sanctions on Iran

Iran's telecoms minister Mohammad Javad Jahromi has accused Israel of launching a cyber attack targeting Iran's telecommunications infrastructure.

The claims were made as the US imposes new sanctions on Iran covering the oil and financial services sector, with the Iranian economy already in a tail-spin with inflation estimated, by some accounts, at around 275 per cent.

The Jerusalem Post suggests that the claims about an Israeli cyber attack were made in a tweet by Jahromi on Monday: "The Zionist regime, with its record of using cyber weapons such as [the] Stuxnet computer virus, launched a cyber attack on Iran on Monday to harm the country's communication infrastructures," the newspaper claim Jahromi tweeted, adding that "thanks to the vigilance of [Iranian] technical teams, it [Israel] returned empty-handed."

However, that tweet would appear to have since been deleted.

According to Iran's Tasnim news agency, the newspaper added, Jahromi's deputy Hamid Fattahi promised more details of the alleged Israeli cyber strikes would be made public this week.

The claim comes just days after the Iranian government claimed to have neutralised a new version of the Stuxnet virus. Stuxnet is widely believed to be have been created by Israeli and/or US intelligence to target Iran's nuclear weapons development programme.

Designed to be propagated via USB sticks, jumping the internet ‘air gap' the weapons development programme used to protect from internet-borne attacks, it reportedly caused centrifuges to spin way beyond their capabilities and to break, while remaining hidden.

Iran last week also accused Israeli intelligence of bugging the phone of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran.

The sanctions on Iran are being re-imposed due to President Trump's administration's opposition to the Iran nuclear deal of 2015. The Trump administration claims that the 2015 agreement didn't deal with what it regards as fundamental problems, such as Iran's continuing support for insurgent groups across the Middle East or curtail its ballistic missile programme.

Iran's leaders, meanwhile, have claimed that the resumption of sanctions will put the country on a war footing, with a two-day military exercise.

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