Iran on Omid Farhang

Molybdenum deficiency is very rare, but not in Iran

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 23:37:43 +0330

What is Molybdenum?

Molybdenum is a chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42 which is located in period 5 and group 6. The name is from Neo-Latin molybdaenum, which is based on Ancient Greek Μόλυβδος molybdos, meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores.

Why Molybdenum Is an Essential Nutrient

You may not have heard of the trace mineral molybdenum, but it is essential to your health.

Stuxnet Missing Link Found, Resolves Some Mysteries Around the Cyberweapon

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:12:00 +0000

Cross-posted from WIRED.

As Iran met in Kazakhstan this week with members of the UN Security Council to discuss its nuclear program, researchers announced that a new variant of the sophisticated cyberweapon known as Stuxnet had been found, which predates other known versions of the malicious code that were reportedly unleashed by the U.S. and Israel several years ago in an attempt to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.

The new variant was designed for a different kind of attack against centrifuges used in Iran’s uranium enrichment program than later versions that were released, according to Symantec, the U.S-based computer security firm that reverse-engineered Stuxnet in 2010 and also found the latest variant.

Narilam Worm manipulates databases in Iran

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 12:37:00 +0000

h-Online: Security firm Symantec has discovered a specialised worm called W32.Narilam that can compromise SQL databases. Symantec reports that the malware “speaks” Persian and Arabic and appears to target mainly companies in Iran. Narilam is, therefore, reminiscent of Stuxnet and its variants.

Narilam spreads via USB flash drives and network shares. Once inside the system, the worm searches for SQL databases that are accessible via the Object Linking and Embedding Database (OLEDB) API. Rather than steal found target data for intelligence purposes, the worm proceeds to modify or delete the data and can, says Symantec, cause considerable damage. Stuxnet similarly served no intelligence purpose and was designed to sabotage its target – an uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran.

Panetta Sounds Alarm on Cyber-War Threat

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 17:19:00 +0000

I just read this and I decided to share with you:

In the hour-long session with the magazine’s editors, he said:

– “We are facing the threat of a new arena in warfare that could be every bit as destructive as 9/11 — the American people need to know that. We can’t hide this from the American people any more than we should have hidden the terrorism-attack threat from the American people.”

Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Joins Instagram, Posts Pics

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:08:00 +0000

Mashable: Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei joined Instagram last week and so far has posted four photos. Iran’s supreme leader since 1989 chose to share shots that likely show scenes of Ramadan.

It comes as a surprise to some that a person who has been slow to get onboard with social media trends — not to mention Iran’s stance toward its citizens’ use of the social media — has joined Instagram. His Twitter account has 4,337 followers so far, and links to his Instagram account. Also posted on his Twitter account are links to YouTube videos and stories about his visits with other world and religious leaders.

Madi Malware: Another Trojan Targets Organizations from the Middle East [Updated]

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:06:00 +0000

This article is copied from Softpedia:

Researchers from Symantec, Kaspersky and Seculert **have all come across Madi (Madhi), a relatively new piece of malware that mainly targets organizations from the Middle East.
**
Before we take a look at Madi and compare it to other infamous Trojans such as Stuxnet, Duqu, or Flame, let’s take a quick look at its name.

According to Wikipedia, Mahdi is considered to be the redeemer of Islam who will rid the world of tyranny, injustice and wrongdoings.

AVAST software blocked its services for embargoed countries

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:41:00 +0000

Petr Chocholous in response to Iranian users contacting avast saying they are unable to open website or update their antivirus said:

AVAST Software a.s. is currently blocking access to port 80 (that effectively means websites and updates of avast! software) of its servers from following countries: Iran, Sudan, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Burma/Myanmar. AVAST Software a.s. [and its subsidiaries/sister companies] must not provide any services in these countries because of policies and regulations that are applicable to AVAST Software a.s.

Flame worm – Iran claims to discover new Stuxnet-like malware

Mon, 28 May 2012 14:57:00 +0000

Naked Security wrote:

The Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (MAHER) claims to have discovered a new targeted malware attack attacking the country, which has been dubbed Flame (also known as Flamer or Skywiper).

In a statement, researchers say that they believe the malware is “a close relation” to Stuxnet, and claim that Flame is not detected by any of 43 anti-virus products it tested against, but that detection was issued to select Iranian organizations and companies at the beginning of May.

Fake Google Iranian domain defaced by Algerian Script Kiddies

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:31:00 +0000

TheHackerNews: Google got Pwned ? NO Few Algerian Script Kiddies try to spread fake rumors that they Hack and Deface the Giant Search engine “Google Iranian” domain http://www.google.co.ir/ . As the screenshot shown a Algerian flag on it and Page Titles : **“**H4Ck3D By vaga-hacker dz and DR.KIM”.

As mentioned by hacker, the team include hackers named : “V4Ga-Dz,Dz0ne,DR-KIM King-Dz,BroX0 aghilass elite jrojan password kha&mix wasim -dz” . It is not confirmed that, either these are member from some Anonymous Hackers but they try to use Anonymous Hackers Tag line : We Dont Forget , We Dont Forgive, Expect Us! to get some publicity.

Iran makes its own anti-virus software – would you buy it?

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:18:00 +0000

SophosLabs: According to reports, Iran has started making its own anti-virus software.

It is said that experts from Shiraz Computer Emergency Response Team of APA (Academic Protection and Awareness) of Iran have been working on the project to help better protect the country’s digital defenses.

Of course, Iran is no stranger to malware. It found itself thrust into the spotlight in 2010 when the infamous Stuxnet worm was widely reported to have infected industrial plants (including nuclear plants) in the country with the seeming intention to target and sabotage SCADA systems.

Iran oil terminal suffers malware attack

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:39:00 +0000

The BBC is reporting that websites belonging to the Iranian oil ministry and national oil company are offline after suffering a malware infection this weekend.

Iran has disconnected all of its oil processing facilities as a precaution, including the facility at Kharg Island which processes more than 90% of Iran’s exports.

The semi-official news agency, Mehr, reported that information about users of the websites had been stolen, but no sensitive data had been accessed.

Banking System Vulnerability – 3 million bank accounts hacked in Iran [Updated]

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:38:00 +0000

As I said in the other post, Iran’s Central Bank has announced that the electronic information of 3 million customers of 10 Iranian banks have been compromised. These banks now require their customers to change their ATM pin numbers before they can access their account. This has caused a rush to the ATM machines by the worried customers.

The hacker was identified as Khosro Zare’, a former bank-system specialist in Iran who recently left the country. Zare’ claimed in a blog that he hacked the PIN codes to highlight the vulnerability of Iran’s banking system.

Hacker divulges data on 10 Iranian banks, central bank warns clients [Updated]

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:21:00 +0000

An Iranian hacker published the information about some 3 million debit cards of 10 Iranian banks, including codes and passwords.

The information has been published by someone named “Khosrow Zare Farid” who was the manager of a company which operates SHETAB payment network in Iran and produces and installs POS devices.

“Around one year ago I found a critical bug in the system. Then I wrote and sent a formal report to all the CEO of banks in Iran but none of them replied to me. Now I decided to publish the information. Governments tried to catch me by Iran Cyber Army but they failed,” he said, according to Kabir News website

Iran increasingly controls its Internet [Update 6]

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:20:00 +0000

Washington Post wrote:

TEHRAN — Whenever an Iranian blogger, connects to the Internet from his office, they switches on a special connection that for years would bypass the Islamic republic’s increasingly effective firewall.

But recently the software, which allowed them to go online through portals elsewhere in the world, stopped working. When it sporadically returns, speeds are so excruciatingly slow that sites such as Facebook become unusable.

[SNIP]

Many fear that the disabling of the software used to bypass the state-run firewall heralds the coming of what authorities have labeled the National Internet. The government’s technology officials have announced the construction of a domestic Internet network comparable to an office intranet, which would block many popular sites. They have hinted the National Internet can be launched at any time, and have said it will gradually start working over the coming three years.

Iranian block on Tor traffic quickly foiled

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:58:00 +0000

The H-Security: The online privacy and security service Tor was blocked by the Iranian government late evening (local time) 13 September. This was done by adding a filter rule to the Iranian border routers which identified Tor traffic and blocked it. The blocking was quickly discovered by Tor and the project released a fix a few hours later. The fix consists of a new version of the Tor software, Tor 0.2.3.4-alpha, and once this is installed on relays and bridges, the company expects normal service to be resumed for users in Iran.

An update on attempted man-in-the-middle attacks

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Google: Today we received reports of attempted SSL man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks against Google users, whereby someone tried to get between them and encrypted Google services. The people affected were primarily located in Iran. The attacker used a fraudulent SSL certificate issued by DigiNotar, a root certificate authority that should not issue certificates for Google (and has since revoked it).
Google Chrome users were protected from this attack because Chrome was able to detect the fraudulent certificate.

Iran: Computer Malware Sabotaged Uranium Centrifuges

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:55:00 +0000

A security man stands next to an anti-aircraft gun as he scans Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, 300 kilometers [186 miles] south of Tehran, Iran, in April 2007.

Wired: In what appears to be the first confirmation that the Stuxnet malware hit Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that malicious computer code launched by “enemies” of the state had sabotaged centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program.

Stuxnet in the news

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:34:00 +0000

The Stuxnet Trojan is very well covered in the media as more and more details about its sophisticated code become public. It abuses four previously unknown security vulnerabilities in Windows to enter the system and is specialized on attacking Siemens processing systems. An interesting information which didn’t get much attention yet comes from heise Security: The nuclear plant in Busheer isn’t really the target of the worm as rumours say, as the attacked systems aren’t approved for usage in nuclear plants.