Tehran – Iran has developed software to protect its industry against the Stuxnet computer virus, the Iranian communications minister said on Thursday, after accusing Israel in November of a cyber attack on Tehran’s telecommunications facilities.
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Stuxnet, which is widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered in 2010 after it was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. It was the first publicly known example of a virus being used to attack industrial machinery.
“Iran’s university scientists have developed a firewall for industrial automation systems to neutralise industrial sabotage such as that caused by Stuxnet in power networks, and it was successfully tested,” Communications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.
In November, Azari-Jahromi said a Stuxnet attack had failed to harm Iran’s communications infrastructures, and accused Israel of being behind it.
Israel has declined comment on whether or not it is involved in a cyberwar on Iran.
In 2013, researchers at Symantec Corp uncovered a version of the Stuxnet that was used to attack the Iranian nuclear programme in 2007.
Tehran agreed under a 2015 deal with world powers to curb the programme but President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of it last year, with Israel’s backing, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.