The failure affecting the subsidized gasoline payment system is a new episode of the Cyberguerre opposing Israel to the Islamic Republic.
by
Closed fuel stations, queues that lengthen and a perfume of cyberguerre. Tuesday, October 26, the digital card payment system used by Iranian motorists for the purchase of their subsidized gasoline quota – three times cheaper that market prices – has been paralyzed by what the Iranian authorities qualified as “Cyberrattack”.
An attack that “could be the work of a foreign country,” said Abolhassan Firouzabadi, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. If the Islamic Republic has not appointed the culprit, the eyes, in Iran, are again on Israel.
The next day, Wednesday, only 5% of the country’s 4,300 service stations had been reconnected to the network, according to the National Petroleum Product Distribution Company, which was restrained to restore the situation Thursday. In some cities, as in Isfahan, piracy has expanded rapid lanes signaling panels, which challenged the Iranian Supreme Guide: “Khamenei, where is our essence?” A direct reference to the events of November 2019, when the Iranians went down the street to protest the tripling of the price of fuels.
Fuel, ultrasensidable topic
The question of fuels is ultrasensible. The attack on October 26, the fifth of this kind in one year, preceded a few days the anniversary of the 2019 demonstrations which had mocked up against the regime, hardly repressed. “Some seek to create disorder and disruption in the daily life of people in order to put them angry,” reacted the Iranian president, the ultraconservant Ebrahim Raisi, invested in early August. “The purpose of this operation has been to disrupt people’s lives to achieve their specific goals.”
Baptized “Predator Bird”, a mysterious group claimed the responsibility of the e-mail of Tuesday. The same had claimed to be at the origin of an attack on 9 July against the rail network. In the stations, the display of the train schedules indicated “long delays”, canceled trains, and called the users to contact the “64411”, a telephone number belonging to the Office of the Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenei. This same issue was on Tuesday and Wednesday on the payment terminals of pirated gasoline pumps.
Check Point, an Israeli cybersecurity company, which analyzed the July attack, had concluded with the presence of a set of tools similar to those used in operations in 2019-2020, which targeted multiple targets in Syria.
You have 55.04% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.