Iran uses cyber defense techniques for 1st time in naval drills

Iran has used cyber defense techniques for the first time in its Velayat 91 naval military exercises.

Iran’s Navy launched six-day naval maneuvers on December 28 in order to display the country’s capabilities to defend its maritime borders and maintain durable peace in the region.

The exercises cover a vast area including the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman, the north of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

On Sunday, senior Iranian commander Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari said, “During one of the practices of the second day of the drills, aggressive forces launched a cyber attack against the computer network of defensive forces in order to infiltrate the network and hack information or spread viruses.”

The spokesman for the Velayat 91 naval drill also stated that the Navy’s cyber defense forces successfully detected the threat and blocked it.

Rastegari said Iranian Navy’s “cyber defense group” is a specialized unit that monitors and protects the computer network of the naval forces. It detects “all cyber infiltration and immediately takes necessary measures to counter them,” he added.

Iran has been the target of several cyber attacks over the past few years.

In response to these attacks, Iran launched a cyber defense headquarters tasked with preventing computer worms from breaking into or stealing data from the country’s maximum security networks, including nuclear facilities, power plants, data centers, and banks.

Iran’s Passive Defense Organization held cyber maneuvers for the first time during the country’s Passive Defense Week in October to test cyber infrastructures.