An Iranian Islamic scholar claimed in a recent sermon that Iran has carried out two cyber attacks against Israel this year.
In a Nov. 6 talk that aired on Iran’s Korasan Shomali TV, Iranian cleric Rahim Mahdavipour said that the first attack had targeted Israeli desalination plants, and that the second, which he said had occurred just days ago, had successfully disabled Israeli power plants.
“Islamic Iran, as the primary and central headquarters of the resistance front, has unique assets and unique winning cards, thank God,” said Mahdavipour.
“The cyber force of this central headquarters of the resistance front—that is, Islamic Iran—carried out two extraordinary attacks this year. The first, at the beginning of the year, was against the desalination plants inside Israel, in that occupied land. Similarly, a few days ago, it carried out a cyber attack against some Israel electricity plants and disabled most of them. This is a unique capability,” he added.
The Iranian cyber attack in early April on an Israeli water-treatment facility, designed to get computers to add too much chlorine to the Israeli water supply, represents a new phase in Iranian aggression, a former Israeli defense official told JNS at the time.
While widespread power outages were reported in Israel on Oct. 30, the Israel Electric Corporation claimed that they were caused by a malfunction, and according to Army Radio emphatically denied they were the result of a cyber attack.
