DUBAI, United Arab Emirates –
Iran’s atomic energy agency on Sunday alleged that hackers on behalf of an unidentified foreign country broke into a subsidiary’s network and gained free access to its email system. .
An anonymous hacking group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, demanding that Tehran release political prisoners detained during recent nationwide protests. The group said it leaked 50 gigabytes of internal emails, contracts and construction plans related to the Iran-backed nuclear power plant in Bushehr and shared these files on their Telegram channel. It is unclear whether the breached system contained classified material.
The attack comes as Iran continues to face nationwide unrest caused by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in police custody for alleged non-compliance. the country’s strict Muslim dress code. On Sunday, Iran’s top teachers’ association reported that organizations had canceled classes at many schools across the country to protest the government’s crackdown on student protesters.
The protests first focused on Iran’s state-mandated hijab or headscarf for women but have turned into one of the most serious challenges facing the country’s ruling clerics . Protesters clashed with police and even called for the fall of the self-proclaimed Islamic Republic. Security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the protests, killing more than 200 people, according to estimates by human rights groups.
Iran’s civilian nuclear force says hackers have breached an email system used by a company that operates the country’s only nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. The agency blamed a “foreign country” for the attack without detailing. Iran has previously accused the United States and Israel of cyberattacks that undermined its infrastructure.
“These desperate illegal attempts to attract public attention,” the organization said.
An anonymous hacking group, calling itself “Black Reward”, published on Telegram what appeared to be contract files, construction plans and details about equipment at the Bushehr plant, which were released online. in 2011 with help from Russia.
“Unlike Westerners, we do not flirt with criminals,” the group wrote.
Meanwhile, the Coordinating Council of the Teachers’ Union, Iran’s leading teachers association spoke out during the protests, reporting that schools, largely in Iran’s Kurdish provinces, have paid attention heed calls for a boycott of Sunday classes to protest the deaths and incarceration of students over the past month of turmoil. There was no immediate acknowledgment of the strikes from the authorities.
The union shared images of teachers holding up protest signs that read “Women, Life, Freedom” instead of teaching in schools in the Muslim cities of Sanandaj, Marivan, Kermanshah and Saqez. Kurds, as well as in Western Azerbaijan and the mountainous provinces of Hamadan.
“Schools have become barracks and tear gas is thrown in the faces of elementary school students,” one teacher wrote in a letter shared by the union. “History will record the name of this brave generation.”
Campuses have long been the focus of unrest in Iran, including during the 1953 student demonstrations under Western support and during the pro-democracy protests of the year. 1999 under former reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
At the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, the scene of an hour-long siege by security forces earlier this month with dozens of students arrested, protests broke out as students tore the barriers separating them. men and women in the campus cafeteria, a student union said.
“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” Large crowds of students shouted until their lungs were filled, the footage showed, their fists in the air.
