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Subscribe to RSSTEHRAN, Iran -- A senior Iranian military official has claimed the country's nuclear facilities are immune to cyber attack.
Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads an Iranian military unit in charge of combating sabotage, was quoted Monday by the official IRNA news agency as saying that Iran and its nuclear facilities possess the technology and knowledge to deal with malicious software, according to The Associated Press.
He did not specify what steps have been taken since 2010, when a virus known as Stuxnet disrupted controls of some nuclear centrifuges. Tehran says its scientists neutralized the malware before it caused serious damage.
Iran has reported other cyber attacks since, including an infection in April 2011 dubbed "Stars." Jalali said that Iran also fought a spy virus called "Doku," without providing details.
Israel accuses Iran of bombings in India, Georgia
Iran's claim comes amid rising tensions between the Islamic Republic and the West. As a tightening web of international measures aims at forcing the Islamic Republic to scrap sensitive nuclear work, a string of events have made it look to the outside world like an undeclared "soft war" was under way.
Apart from the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility, which Iran accused Israel and the United States for, the U.S. has accused Tehran's shadowy Quds Force in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
In late 2011, the United States lost a spy drone in Iran, unmasking an aggressive surveillance program.
Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuke scientists
There have also been unexplained explosions at an Iranian missile depot and four nuclear scientists have been killed in Iran-- the latest on Wednesday.
Iran reacted to those events and the stepped-up economic sanctions as if under siege. It threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping lane.
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- Malaysia deports Saudi accused of prophet insult
- Bahrain seizes US activists amid protests
- Al-Qaida urges Muslims to help Syrian rebels
- Peru captures wounded Shining Path leader
The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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Challenge accepted!
This sounds like a job for the big "A"! They should put that ability to good use and who them just how weak their system actually is :P
My first thought was that's generally not the kind of challenges anyone with any sense should issue. I guess these guys didn't learn from Job's mistake.
Why do we keep publishing their claims like this...............It's like Mike Tyson........sure he has a face tattoo and he still snarls and such.......but once he started getting his butt kicked nobody listened anymore and now he raises Pigeons. Let Israel and the US take out their computer systems and probably their nuclear centers.........then they can raise Pigeons with Mike.
Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull !!!!!!!!!!!
Hackers of the world unite !!! This is just to good to pass up. Don't worry about a thing, all the governments in the free world will get blamed for it. Have fun and good luck on your quest !!
bob
We just downloaded AVG for free bitches!
I was thinking the same thing as Sharpe in DC. Put Anonymous on the case and see how long it would take to break right in. No system is infallible.
Only in talking. Let us declare that all Iranian nuke facilities will be wiped out!
Nothing more!
These Islamic mad cuckoos in their own world are nuts.
Sunnis are 100 percent nuts and liabilities.
Shiites are 80 percent nuts and liabilities.
Yeah, immune to cyber attacks, thats what Bof A thought, the FBI, and the websites of the governments of New Zealand, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Colombia, Egypt and Chile on and on.
Fools.
However, your scientists don't seem immune to magnetic bombs strapped to the sides of their cars.
Good stuff!
Iran needs to invent the plastic car or provide some kind of transportation for the scientist that a magnet can’t stick too.
duct tape
In stupidity, not many can beat these Islamic mad people.
Instead of taking all the troubles, why does not Iran buy or steal as they normally do nukes from Pakis?
With 18 percent of Shiites population in Pakistan, Iran can easily steal huge chunks of nukes from Pakistan!
Pakistan knows if they proliferate their nukes, the US will stop sending them billions of dollars every year.
Its their meal ticket.
The only way to be immune to cyber attack is to have no way of getting information into a system. which prevents a system from existing in the first place.
no just dont have it coneected to the net
@ hammer - It would take more than that. The virus that did so much damage to their nuclear program was passed to the target system via hand carried media IIRC. Like Abyssoft said, the only way to prevent it would be to have no i/o port for data to be transfered into the system. Most of us call a system like that a brick.
They confuse etch-a-sketch with computer.
Isnt that why iPads have accelerometers?
Take the help of Julius Assange and hack not only nuke computers, but all their computers!
Then put a virus on the top!
Instead of five times a day prayers, they will be doing 50 times a day prayers!
It's a Challenge to all saying that no one is good enough to get to them !!
Lets Prove them wrong !!!
Hello Anonymous? You have a challenge.
I think Anonymous should be anonymously funded to accelerate their activities in this area ... actually, it might be better if the stole the money first from Iranian off-shore accounts.
This sounds like more than a challenge to me. This sounds like a double dog dare!
That Mahmoud Ahmedinijad appears to be such a nice young man it's no wonder the people of Iran adore him. I'm sure he wishes us--US, Europe, Israel, etc-- all the best. He's just misunderstood, sort of the James Dean of southwest Asia. So what if he's secretly gay--it's a free country, isn't it?
northlite, you're just wrong for that, lol
oh well, i guess we're just gonna have to (eventually) deal with them the old fashioned way...lots and lots of large bombs. hopefully we've learned at this point that more bombs dropped are a better option than more troops on the ground...
This ranks right up there with their undefeatable navy that uses fiberglass speed boats and plywood planes. Let's not forget their strong economy with 80% inflation, or their flawless assassination attempts on Israeli, Saudi, and American diplomats (none of which have worked so far).
All it would take is to drop an e-bomb on Iran and their whole electrial grid would be destroyed. This could be done without any Iranian dying. They would not be able to use any of their computers, and their nuclear program would come to a end.
Sounds like "Anonymous" should give it a shot!
Of course their program is immune to cyber attack. Listen to what their nutcase leader always says, "The Iranians are the only enlightened people on earth. Nothing that comes from the Mullahs there could possibly go wrong."
I'm afraid this is a bit out of Anonymous' league. They are good at DOS attacks and hacking systems using stolen passwords, but I'm afraid they would just embarrass themselves if they got involved here.
It's about time we stopped screwing around with these @!$%#s. We should show Iran who they're messing with. Send in everything we have and take down the Iranian defenses, destroy their defenses, flatten every mountain, bomb every oil platform, blow up their power grid, their communications, their navy, crush those puny little kamikaze speed boats, blockade their ports, close their bank accounts and take their money, let loose our air force and pulverize everything back to sand, roll in with our tanks and take out their military. Then we can send in the UN to clean it up....they need to justify their existence too.
SANCTIONS??? NEGOTIATIONS??? WHATEVER FOR??? They are in no position to negotiate...at least not yet. As the country that defends freedom all over the world, it is our duty to put this nutcase in his place.
Maybe Iran should ask the starving North Korean nation how well this worked out for them. I see it ending up in the same fashion they will get there nuke but be cut off from the rest of the world.
Thanks Iran, for the "BIG RED FLAG"...! I'm sure there's enough hackers willing to take on "YOUR" challenge. Oh by the way, we have started..!!! he he he.
To the hackers of the world...here is your challenge from, Gholam Reza Jalali. On your mark, get set, go! Good luck, and happy hunting!
Ithe iranians solution to malicious software is to bury it waist deep and then throw rocks at it .
The religious fanatics that have taken over this country are the target. The Iranian people are just sheep. The USA avoided helping the People of Iran last year when the ''election'' was so obviously stolen- The west just stood by and the Iranian opposition was crushed and imprisoned by the hard liners. Israel will be doing more and more soon. Then let an Iranian democracy emerge. Don't bomb the hell out of them. Help remove the small amount of Mullahs that think Iran is the enlighten people and will be instrumental in bringing back the Grand poo-bah. Too bad Obama is weak spinal syndrome.
I doubt it. They are probably better protected. But the intelligence agencies of countries like Israel and the U.S. has people dedicated to breaching just such security safeguards, and to preventing a breach of our our networks.
It is generally accepted that the Chinese have hacked into Google's systems, and Google employs some of the brightest computer minds in private industry.
There is probably no perfect defense against such efforts. There is a constant race going on between those attempting to hack into computers and those trying to prevent them.
It never ends.
how should we procide any one like to give on line class so we can dog pile? and can we start with there gov money?