Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Iranian State Goes Offline To Avoid Cyber-Attacks

Posted by samzenpus on from the I'm-going-home dept.

DavidGilbert99 writes "The Iranian minister for telecommunication has said that the government will be taking key ministries and state agencies offline in the next month to protect sensitive information from cyber-attacks. However this move is just the initial step in an 18 month plan to take the country off the world wide web, and replace it with a state-controlled intranet. From the article: 'The US began offensive cyber-attacks against Iran during the presidency of George W. Bush when the Olympics Games project was founded. Out of this was [born] the Stuxnet cyber-weapon, which was designed to specifically target the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in Iran.'"

8 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Talk about... by benjfowler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

    I feel sorry for the Iranian people, who by-and-large, are reasonably normal, but are stuck with a crap theocratic government through little fault of their own.

    Will BP and their friends ever be held responsible for the damage they've done to world peace in the name of profit for their shareholders?

    1. Re:Talk about... by vlm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I feel sorry for the Iranian people, who by-and-large, are reasonably normal, but are stuck with a crap theocratic government through little fault of their own.

      You'd expect the American people and Iranian people would have common cause, but its always shouted down in idiotic flag waving patriotism (on both sides). Which is too bad. When we sold our soul to the international olympics committee weren't we promised international brotherhood? I want a refund.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:Talk about... by Krojack · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Will BP and their friends ever be held responsible for the damage they've done to world peace in the name of profit for their shareholders?

      I honestly don't understand what BP and friends w/shareholders have to do with:
      A) a government that openly states that they don't recognize a country (Israel) and wishes it was wiped off the map.
      B) a government that will publicly hang gay people.

      For this to end, what's currently happening in Syria needs to also happen in Iran. Yes, sadly people will die but that's the cost to get out from under the hand of such governments.

    3. Re:Talk about... by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The US and Israel are both governments where you can't be elected without being overtly religious. They're also hyper-aggressive and have engaged in acts of war against Iran, which has done .... what, exactly? Which states have crap theocratic governments again?

    4. Re:Talk about... by blackest_k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I know it is undemocratic but I really like the house of Lords, hereditary peers especially. They owe nothing to nobody and have proven time and time again to be the only barrier to government excess.

      They say what they think and that makes a difference. I don't even have an issue with the clergy since they are at least principled can you say the same for a retired politician who's been bought and sold their whole career?

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  2. Re:Saving Cash! (not much, and kill the progress.. by neurocutie · · Score: 3, Insightful
    - no way it will reduce cybersecurity issues down to anything close to zero.

    - will isolate not only the people, but those Iranians working on science and technology, which will slow down their progress dramatically. Can't have it both ways...

  3. Epic Plan fail by maroberts · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Walk over Iranian border with virus laden USB key, plug into Iranian Internet and reinfect at will. Has the added benefit that Iranian intranet, being reasonably isolated from the outside world, won't infect computers on the real internet as often.

    --

    Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
    Karma: Chameleon

  4. Re:Saving Cash! by Shoten · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...and doing no good.

    The Stuxnet and Flame malware payloads were not just unleashed on the open Internet to find their way to Iran. The infection pattern of both of them indicates that they are targeted...and that means delivery via geographic means. In other words, human assets with hands on keyboards, and no degree of network separation has any effect on that. In fact, airgapping a network actually reduces your ability to fight against the consequences of an attack in many ways. (Ask anyone who's had to clean up an infection that got onto an airgapped network via an infected laptop.) Now granted, with regard to Flame, if there's no way to call home, there's no way to exfiltrate data using a direct network connection. But that doesn't mean that an attacker can't build themselves a nice nest egg of data on a hard drive to take with them.

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.