*Tehran – Iranian Internet service providers (ISP) are in normal condition12 hours after Friday cyber attack, Maher Institute announced.*
‘Tonight Iranian data centers were targeted by a cyber attack,’ Ministerof Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Mohammad-Javad AzariJahromi said in a Twitter message late on Friday.
Investigations show that the attacks covered wide areas inside the country,Mahdi Mousavi, an expert in Maher institute told the Islamic Republic NewsAgency (IRNA) on Saturday.
In the wake of the recent cyber attack, Iranian internet providers Afranet,Shatel and Sabanet went haywire.
Attempts have been made to control the attacks with cooperation of mainISPs in the country, and the data centers that were attacked returned tonormal condition, he added.
The attack aimed at damaging Cisco Systems, he said, adding that Iran wasalso damaged in this regard.
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerateheadquartered in San Jose, California, in the center of Silicon Valley,that develops, manufactures and sells networking hardware,telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services andproducts. Through its numerous acquired subsidiaries, such as OpenDNS,WebEx, Jabber and Jasper, Cisco specializes into specific tech markets,such as Internet of Things (IoT), domain security and energy management.
According to Maher statement, the attacks included Cisco’s router andswitching equipment, which has been tampered and all the configurations(including running-config and startup-config) have been removed.
A message with this theme was found in the startup-config format, which isthe cause of the problem, and the existence of a security vulnerability inthe Cisco Smart Install Client feature, and any operating system that hasthis feature shows its vulnerability, the statement read.
Based on the preliminary investigations, hackers put the US flag innavigation systems to show protests against US elections and attacks wrenot limited to Iran, Azari Jahromi said.
The Iranian ICT minister also said that over 95% of navigation systems werefixed to normal mode.