Iran Oil Terminal Taken Offline By ‘Cyber Attack’

A malware attack forced a key Iranian oil terminal to go offline on Sunday, according to reports.

Internal systems at Iran’s oil terminal on Kharg island in the Gulf have been disconnected from the internet, yet there has not been any disruption of oil production.

Websites belonging to the Iranian oil ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company were offline for hours, according to national news agencies. Oil ministry spokesman Alireza Nikzad told the ministry’s news website SHANA that data related to some users had been compromised.

Kharg Island’s terminal handles around 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

Stuxnet Part Deux?

A cyber crisis committee has been called into action to deal with the situation, according to the Mehr news agency. That same committee was responsible for dealing the the Stuxnet attacks of 2010, which were designed to disrupt Iranian nuclear operations.

Rik Ferguson, director of security research and communication at Trend Micro, noted there had been three high-profile malware attacks on Iran in as many years, including Stuxnet, Duqu and Stars.

There is little information to work on in this latest case, meaning it could be an average piece of malware causing carnage, Ferguson told TechWeekEurope.

“It could easily be run-of-the-mill malware that broke out in a key facility. Conficker, for example, certainly caused more than its fair share of trouble with outbreaks and was particularly tough to eradicate entirely from a network,” he added.

“That being said, of course, it could be something more targeted, but again targeted attacks are very much the norm, as almost any visible global organisation or media outlet will tell you.”

Think you are a security guru? Try our quiz!