Iran, the biggest victim of cyber attacks in the world

Not long ago, at a national conference, I said that we are the world’s biggest victim of cyberattacks. “Really?” one of the audience members asked in surprise. I said yes! You may recall that one of the most famous and sophisticated of these attacks was the Stuxnet malware, discovered in 2010. Designed specifically to target industrial control systems at Iranian nuclear facilities, this attack is considered the first physical cyberattack (with a direct impact on industrial equipment). Stuxnet indirectly disrupted uranium enrichment centrifuges and represented a major development in cyberwarfare. Since then, Iran has repeatedly been the target of more sophisticated cyberattacks, including malware attacks such as Flame in 2012 and Shamoon in 2016. These attacks have often been linked to political, security, or the destruction of critical infrastructure in the country. In other words, countries were behind these attacks, attacks that went far beyond a hacker attack by an individual or a small group. Let’s take Business Continuity Management and Risk Management more seriously, especially in Iran. I will write more about this.