Iran’s Khamenei calls for fight against enemy ‘infiltration’ amid cyber worries

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Sunday for the stepping up of efforts to fight enemy “infiltration” in a speech to officials in charge of cyber defense, state television reported.

“In the face of the enemy’s complex practices, our civil defense should ... confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date ... action,” Ayatollah Khamenei told civil defense officials, who are in charge of areas including cyber defense.

The television report did not give details of the “infiltration” Khamenei was referring to.

Iranian officials have long warned about Western cultural influences through entertainment, social media and the Internet as a threat against Islamic and revolutionary values.

A decade ago, Iran’s nuclear program was hit by Stuxnet, a virus which was deployed by US and Israeli intelligence agencies against a uranium enrichment facility.

Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s civil defense agency, said on Sunday that Iran had recently neutralized a new version of Stuxnet.

“Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts ... and was trying to enter our systems,” Jalali was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency at a news conference marking Iran’s civil defense day. He did not give further details.

On October, 19, Jalali said that Iran is in the process of cutting off internet access, launching instead a national network as the US re-imposed sanctions near in early November, in a move seen by observers that it comes within the Islamic Republic control of possible protests due to further deterioration of economic and living conditions. Full story