Iran says it has not reciprocated cyberattacks it has faced in past years with a similar response.
“Iran has never responded to these illegal attacks with reciprocal cyberattacks,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on November 27.
He said Tehran had been in recent years the victim of “serious” cyberattacks, including a computer worm called Stuxnet that had reportedly targeted the country’s nuclear facilities.
Jaberi was reacting to a recent report in The New York Times that quoted unnamed U.S. officials and cybersecurity groups as saying there had been a surge in cyberespionage by Iran, culminating in cyberattacks against the State Department.
The November 24 report added that Iranian hackers had broken into the e-mail and social-media accounts of State Department officials working on Iran.
Jaberi Ansari appeared to dismiss the report.
He said Tehran has been committed “to adopting and strengthening international deterrent mechanisms to prevent cyberattacks.”
