First explained by “disturbances in the computer system”, the interruption of the gasoline distribution has been attributed to a cyber attack by the Supreme National Security Council, the highest security instance of the country.
Le Monde with AFP
The fuel distribution has been interrupted, Tuesday, October 26, around Noon in all Iran’s service stations, has announced state television. “Due to disturbances in the computer system, the fuel distribution in service stations across the country has been interrupted,” said the same source.
First unidentified, this general failure is actually due to a cyber attack, affirmed shortly after the highest security instance of the country. “The Supreme National Security Council confirmed that it was a cyber attack on the Fuel Distribution Computer System,” State television reported. “The details of the attack and its origin are the subject of an investigation,” added the same source, without more detail.
The official channels have shown closed gas stations while waiting lines were lying down. “An urgent meeting is held at the Iranian National Petroleum Product Distribution Society to solve the problem,” said his spokesperson, Fatemeh Kahi. In Tehran, the technicians of the Ministry of Oil have put offline the computer system of some service stations to distribute the fuel manually, again reported the television later in the day.
“No plan to increase The price of gasoline “
From the beginning, “concerned officials” had not excluded that it can be a cyber attack, mentioned by Iranian social networks. The Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi, however, had preferred that the interruption was “due to a technical problem that will soon be solved”.
The Fars Press Conservative Agency has brought this breakdown from November 15, 2019, when violent demonstrations had erupted in Iran after the announcement of a sudden increase in the price of gasoline. The government “has no plan to increase the price of gas and people should not worry,” Vahidi promised, interrogated by the audiovisual public.
In July, a cyber attack had already paralyzed the railway system of the country and caused scenes of “chaos”, wrote then The Times of Israel . In addition to the delays and cancellations of trains, hackers broadcast information messages on erroneous traffic, calling users to contact a number – which proved to be that of the Office of the Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei.
If the attack had not been claimed, The New York Times reported in July a survey, led by an Israeli-American cybersecurity company, had concluded that a group named Indra and opposite To the Iranian government was probably at the origin of the cyberattack.