Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said Sunday an email server of its subsidiary was hacked in a “foreign” attack aimed at drawing “attention” amid protests over the death of Mahsa Amini.
The Islamic republic has been gripped by weeks-long demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Amini on September 16 after her arrest for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
The street violence has led to dozens of deaths, mostly among protesters but also among the security forces, and hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested.
A group called Black Reward on Friday issued an ultimatum on Twitter, threatening to release documents on Tehran’s nuclear program unless all “political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and people arrested in the recent protests” were released within 24 hours.
Material on social media said to be released by the group on Saturday included a short clip from a purported nuclear site in Iran, as well as documents containing agreements, maps and payslips.
The nuclear agency acknowledged in a statement that a hack had targeted its subsidiary, the Atomic Energy Production and Development Company, but downplayed the importance of the documents.
“Unauthorised access by a source originating from a specific foreign country to the email system of this company led to the publication of the content of some emails on social media,” it said in a statement.
These emails contain “technical messages and normal and daily exchanges”, it added.
“The purpose of such illegal efforts, which are made out of desperation, is to attract public attention, creating media atmospheres and psychological operations,” the statement continued.
Iran in 2015 reached a landmark deal with world powers, after years of negotiations over its nuclear program.
The agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), gave Iran sanctions relief in return for restricting its nuclear program.
It was derailed in 2018 when then-president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from it, but on-off talks have taken place since April 2021 in an effort to revive it.

More from AFP
- Dutch, European Hospitals ‘Hit by Pro-Russian Hackers’
- Cyberattacks Target Websites of German Airports, Admin
- Meta Slapped With 5.5 Million Euro Fine for EU Data Breach
- International Arrests Over ‘Criminal’ Crypto Exchange
- France Regulator Raps Apple Over App Store Ads
- More Political Storms for TikTok After US Government Ban
- Meta Hit With 390 Million Euro Fine Over EU Data Breaches
- Facebook Agrees to Pay $725 Million to Settle Privacy Suit
Latest News
- Google Shells Out $600,000 for OSS-Fuzz Project Integrations
- F5 Working on Patch for BIG-IP Flaw That Can Lead to DoS, Code Execution
- Flaw in Cisco Industrial Appliances Allows Malicious Code to Persist Across Reboots
- UK Car Retailer Arnold Clark Hit by Ransomware
- Dealing With the Carcinization of Security
- HeadCrab Botnet Ensnares 1,200 Redis Servers for Cryptomining
- Cyber Insights 2023 | Supply Chain Security
- Cyber Insights 2023 | Regulations
