Hackers warn Iran: 'Don't mess with our elections'

Iranian IT minister says warning that displayed US flag was part of attack that also affected Europe, India and the US

Hackers have attacked networks in a number of countries including data centres in Iran, where they left the image of a US flag on screens along with a warning: “Don’t mess with our elections”, the Iranian IT ministry said on Saturday.

“The attack apparently affected 200,000 router switches across the world in a widespread attack, including 3,500 switches in our country,” the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology said in a statement carried by Iran’s official news agency IRNA.

The statement said the attack, which hit internet service providers and cut off web access for subscribers, was made possible by a vulnerability in routers from Cisco, which had earlier issued a warning and provided a patch that some firms had failed to install over the Iranian New Year holiday.

A blog published on Thursday by Nick Biasini, a threat researcher at Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, said: “Several incidents in multiple countries, including some specifically targeting critical infrastructure, have involved the misuse of the Smart Install protocol. As a result, we are taking an active stance, and are urging customers, again, of the elevated risk and available remediation paths.”

On Saturday evening, Cisco said the postings were a tool to help clients identify weaknesses and repel a cyber-attack.

Iran’s IT minister, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, posted a picture of a computer screen on Twitter with the image of the US flag and the hackers’ message. He said it was not yet clear who had carried out the attack.

Azari-Jahromi said the attack mainly affected Europe, India and the United States. “Some 55,000 devices were affected in the United States and 14,000 in China, and Iran’s share of affected devices was 2%,” he was quoted by state television as saying.

In a tweet, Azari-Jahromi said Iran’s computer emergency response body MAHER had shown “weaknesses in providing information to (affected) companies” after the attack, which was detected late on Friday in Iran.

Hadi Sajadi, deputy head of the state-run Information Technology Organisation of Iran, said the attack was neutralised within hours and that no data was lost.