Oct 28 (Reuters) – 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 defence, state television reported.
“In the face of the enemy’s complex practices, our civil defence should … confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date … action,” Ayatollah Khamenei told civil defence officials, who are in charge of areas including cyber defence.
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 programme was hit by Stuxnet, a virus which was deployed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies against a uranium enrichment facility.
Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s civil defence agency, said on Sunday that Iran had recently neutralised 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 defence day. He did not give further details.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Toby Chopra)
