A blast on Saturday and a cyber-attack at the local railway stations on Friday put Iran’s national security at risk.
Iran’s capital jolted with a blast early Saturday morning. The blast happened inside Mellat park near the headquarters of the state broadcasting company in Northern Tehran.
Speaking to the official state media, security authorities said that the blast happened due to an explosion in an unidentified object. However, no casualties were reported.
When asked if this was a terrorist attack, Tehran’s deputy security chief Hamidreza Goudarzi said that investigators are looking at the details of the explosion to understand the cause better.
The explosion happened just a day after a large-scale cyber-attack struck Iran. Any connection with the cyber-attack has not been confirmed by the authorities yet.
On Friday, Iran’s railway network came was attacked by hackers as fake messages were posted on the display screens saying things like “long-delayed because of cyber-attack” and “canceled”.
Soon after, a helpline number was provided, and people were urged to call and ask for information. However, later it turned out to be the official number of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The hackers did not give any hints about their identity, nor about why they were attacking the railroad system in the first place. Speculations on whether this was done as a prank or as a threat are still prevalent as no official cause has been identified.
Earlier that day, Fars news agency reported that the electronic tracking system was also lost however later deleted their report when the state railway company spokesperson Sadegh Sekri claimed that the disruption caused no problems for the train service.
In his statement, Sekri stated that trains were arriving and departing without any problems and denied the possibility of a possible cyber-attack.
No direct link or cause has been identified for both incidents.
Cyber-attacks in Iran
Iran has been accusing enemies of the country of interfering in the cyber network as earlier in 2019 when a similar error in Railway Company’s computer server had caused delays in train service.
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In December 2019, Iran’s telecommunication department confirmed that unspecified electronics had been under a massive cyber-attack but provided no specific details on the incident.
Iran’s nuclear program had also suffered damage due to the Stuxnet virus in October 2018. The Stuxnet worm destroyed over 984 uranium-enriching centrifuges.