A group of Israeli hackers calling themselves “Predatory Sparrow” has taken credit for hacking into Iranian systems and causing a shutdown of 70% of all of Iran’s gas stations.
Predatory Sparrow – known as Gonjeshke Darande in Persian, released a statement saying, “This cyberattack comes in response to the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.”
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“Khamenei, playing with fire has a price, This is just a taste of what we have in store,” it declared.
Gonjeshke Darande also explained that, “As in our previous operations, this cyberattack was conducted in a controlled manner while taking measures to limit potential damage to emergency services.”
The hackers also said that they had delivered warnings to emergency services across Iran before its attack and that they ensured a portion of the gas stations across the country were left “unharmed for the same reason, despite our access and capability to completely disrupt their operation.”
“These companies are subject to international sanctions and continue their operations despite the restrictions,” they said as a justification for their attack. “These cyber-attacks [are] being carried out carefully to protect innocent individuals,”
Reza Navar, a spokesperson for Iran’s petrol stations association told an Iranian news agency, “ A software problem with the fuel system has been confirmed in some stations across the country and experts are currently fixing the issue,”
Iranian state television told the public that the country’s gasoline stations were seeking to provide fuel manually, adding now that their electronic systems have been hacked and more than 50% of the country’s stations were providing services.
The Israel government denied any connection to the attack.
But on a certain level this is somewhat poetic justice because Iran has been behind many attempted and successful cyber attacks all over the world, against government organizations and private companies alike.
