Israel has suffered a “massive” cyberattack on government websites hours after Iran claimed it had foiled a Mossad plot to sabotage a key uranium enrichment facility.
According to the National Cyber Directorate of Israel, the websites were taken down via a denial-of-service attack, under which junk traffic overwhelms a site and renders it unreachable. Officials said that services were returning and checks being carried out on “strategic” Israeli websites and government infrastructure, including electric and water companies, to see if they were also targeted.
The attack came after reports in the Iranian press that Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency, had tried to sabotage operations at Fordow enrichment plant.
Iranian media reported that an Israeli agent had made contact with an employee through a Hong Kong-based company, bribed him and provided him with a laptop. However, the reports said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s nuclear command had been alerted to the plan and had arrested those involved.
Fordow is built beneath a mountain, and is the second most important facility in the country in terms of volume of centrifuges for enriching uranium. The employee allegedly approached by Israeli agents was working directly with advanced centrifuges at the site.
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Israeli intelligence officials have long believed that Iran would up its uranium enrichment to 90 per cent weapons-grade level at Fardow because it is harder to attack that facility from the air. Iran began enriching its uranium to near-weapons-grade quality after President Trump walked out of the nuclear pact in 2018 and reimposed debilitating sanctions.
Israel has not commented on the alleged failed attack, but a shadow cyberwar between the two countries has been going on for nearly two decades. Iran has often accused Israel of sabotaging its nuclear capabilities, including an explosion at Natanz enrichment facility last year and the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. Israel accused groups linked with Iran of attempting to hack its water system the same year.
However, Israel’s worries have grown as world powers sought to revive the US-Iran nuclear deal with the support of the Biden administration. Talks in Vienna have temporarily paused due to Russian concerns over the lifting of sanctions against the sale of Iranian oil.
Israel has said it would not be bound by any agreement reached in Vienna, implying that it would carry on with its covert activities to stop Iran from expanding its nuclear programme.
As if encouraged by the possibility of the revival of the nuclear deal, Iran launched dozens of ballistic missiles on the northern Iraqi city of Arbil this weekend at what it alleged were Israeli “strategic centres”.
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The attack was meant to avenge the killing of Iranian military personnel in an Israeli strike in Syria. Israel has carried out hundreds of such strikes against alleged Iranian assets in Syria over the years but Iran has never reacted in this way before.
Iran has not revealed the exact number and identity of the alleged saboteurs arrested, and Israel has not officially accused Iran of the cyberattack, but tensions between the two continue to rise.
Iran raises stakes in cyberwarfare
The suspected attack suggests that Tehran already expects talks on the nuclear deal to collapse and that Israelis may therefore soon take action against Iranian nuclear research sites (Michael Binyon writes).
The impending collapse of talks on reviving the joint comprehensive plan of action, because of last-minute Russian demands, would bolster hardliners in Iran determined to race ahead with the development of a nuclear bomb. This is turn would increase pressure in Israel to take pre-emptive action against Iran. In the past, Israel has introduced malware into vital Iranian computer systems to sabotage much nuclear research. Now, it appears, the Iranians want to show the Israelis that they too can stage cyberattacks.
The incident will alarm Israeli defence officials for two reasons. It shows that Iran has hackers already capable of staging a sophisticated attack on Israeli installations and who may now try to disable defence communications. It also shows that Israel, one of the most computer-literate societies in the world, does not seem to have sufficient defences.
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Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has made no secret of its wish to see the talks on limiting its nuclear research collapse. It also knows that, short of an outright airstrike, Israel is likely now to step up its cyberattacks to cripple the Iranian programme, which analysts say could lead to the production of a nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks.
A decade ago Israel deployed Stuxnet malware against Iran, which was estimated to have ruined a fifth of Iran’s centrifuges and infected more than 200,000 computers. Iran is now clearly preparing to fight a new cyberwar with Israel and the latest attack may be a pre-emptive strike.
