Commander: Iranian Cyber Forces Easily Access Enemies’ Highly Classified Info

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi stressed the high capability of the country’s cyberwar experts, and said the Iranian cyber forces have easily infiltrated enemies’ data systems and accessed top secret information.

“Today our cyber forces have easily accessed the enemies’ highly classified information, and (our) cyberwar codes have been promoted in a desirable manner,” Fadavi said at a ceremony to inaugurate the IRGC Navy’s Information Technology (IT) Systems in Tehran on Sunday.

He also stressed the vital importance of information and cyber security for the IRGC, and said, “Today, the enemy is ready to pay billions of dollars to access even the most insignificant pieces of information of us.”

“The information (cyber) security is like a master key for the IRGC and it should receive the top priority,” Fadavi said.

Last year, Iranian military officials stunned the Pentagon after they downed a highly advanced US drone and decoded its military systems.

Senior Iranian military officials announced this April that the country’s experts had decoded the intelligence gathering system and memory hard discs of the United States’ sophisticated RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone that was downed by Iran in December 2011.

Then, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Forces Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed some data taken from the aircraft’s intelligence system to discourage his counterparts in Pentagon who had alleged that Iranians would not succeed in decoding the spy drone’s memory and intelligence devices.

“This plane is seen as a national capital for us and our words should not disclose all the information that we have very easily,” Hajizadeh told FNA in April.

The unmanned surveillance plane lost by the United States in Iran was a stealth aircraft being used for secret missions by the CIA.

The aircraft is among the highly sensitive surveillance platform in the CIA’s fleet that was shaped and designed to evade enemy defenses.

The drone is the first such loss by the US.