DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran retaliated instead of a large apple counterattack carrying out cyberattacks on its nutransparent sites, the chief of civil defense said, after a fire at its Natanz plant that some Iranian officials say might have been caused by cyber-sabotage.
The Natanz uranium enrichment site, much of which is underground, is one of the Iranian services monitored through inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nutransparent watchdog.
Iran’s main security framework said Friday that the “incident” was determined at the nutransparent site, but “for security reasons” will be announced at an opportune time.
The Iranian Atomic Energy Organization first reported that an “incident” had occurred on Thursday morning in Natanz, located in the desert of central Isfahan Province.
He then posted a photo of a single-storey brick design with its roof and walls burned by his best friends. A door hanging from its hinges reported that there was an explosion design.
“Responding to cyberattacks is a component of the counterattack’s defense power. If it is shown that our counterattack has been attacked through a cyberattack, respond,” civil defense leader Gholamreza Jalali told state television on Thursday.
An article published Thursday through official news firm IRNA addressed what he called the sabotage option through enemies such as Israel and the United States, avoiding direct employment.
“So far, Iran has tried to save it from intensifying crises and training unpredictable conditions and conditions,” IRNA said. “But the crossing of the red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran through hostile countries, especially a friend of the Zionist regime and the United States, suggests that this strategy … reviewed.”
Three Iranian officials who spoke to Reuters on anonymity said they believed the fire was the result of a cyberattack, but did not cite any evidence.
One official said the attack targeted a centrifugal assembly building, touching the confusing cylindrical machines containing uranium, and said Iran’s enemies had committed similar acts in the past.
In 2010, the Stuxnet virus for PC, which has been widely developed across Israel, was discovered after being used to attack Natanz’s facilities.
Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity researcher and representative founded in Brussels, said the incident necessarily says a lot about what happened on Thursday.
“The parties who took position more than 10 years ago, and once in themselves, cannot shape much evidence of what is happening today,” Olejnik, who worked as a systematic cyber warfare adviser on the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in an email.
He added that talking about a cyberattack was “too premature” and that invoking the spectrum of virtual sabotage “is a convenient country for herbal parties or incompetence.”
Two of the Iranian officials said Israel may also have been the Natanz incident, but they provided no evidence.
When asked Thursday night about recent incidents reported at Iranian strategic sites, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters, “It is transparent that we enter this area.”
The Israeli army and Netanyahu’s office, which oversees Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, did not answer Reuters’ questions on Friday.
The IAEA said Friday that the fire did not involve non-transparent fabrics and that none of its inspectors were provided at the time.
“The Agency has been in contact with the applicable Iranian government so that the corporation cannot influence its safeguard verification activities, which are expected to continue as before,” said one IAEA, adding that Iran had told it that the cause of the Fire was not yet known.
Natanz is the centerpiece of Iran’s enrichment program, which Tehran says is for non-violent purposes only. Western intelligence agencies and the IAEA had a coordinated and clandestine nutransparent weapons program that it discontinued in 2003.
Tehran denies ever-transparent weapons.
Iran has curbed its nutransparent paints on display for the elimination of maximum global sanctions under an agreement with six world powers in 2015, but has reduced compliance with the agreement’s restrictions since its withdrawal in 2018.
Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and Raphael Satter in Washington; Writing by Michael Georgy, Parisa Hafezi and Mary Milliken; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Chris Reese
All quotes were delayed by no less than five minutes. See here for a complete list of operations and delays.
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