In a footnote to an account on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance before the Iranian parliament, the BBC notes “In a separate development, the BBC's Director General, Mark Thompson, has revealed that the corporation has been the victim of a ‘sophisticated cyber-attack’ in an attempt to undermine its Persian Service.”
ZDNet reports extracts from a speech due to be delivered today by Thompson at the Royal Television Society. He is expected to say, “There was a day recently when there was a simultaneous attempt to jam two different satellite feeds of BBC Persian into Iran, to disrupt the service’s London phone lines by the use of multiple automatic calls, and a sophisticated cyber-attack on the BBC.” He will say that it is difficult, if not impossible, to confirm the source of the attacks, “though attempted jamming of BBC services into Iran is nothing new and we regard the coincidence of these different attacks as self-evidently suspicious.”
The significance of jamming the satellite feeds is that it is the only way in which Iranian inhabitants can receive the BBC’s Persian TV service.
Iranian attacks against BBC services follows reports of intimidation against staff, indicating a concerted effort to prevent Iranians receiving outside news from the BBC. On 3 February the BBC carried a separate report, “Iran accused of intimidating BBC Persian staff.” The media is heavily regulated in Iran and all BBC staff operate from outside of the country. “In recent months,” said the BBC, “a number of relatives of BBC Persian staff had been detained for short periods of time by the Iranian authorities and urged to get their relatives in London to either stop working for the BBC, or to ‘co-operate’ with Iranian intelligence officials.”
Details about the ‘sophisticated cyber-attack’ are not known, nor to what extent – if any – it was successful. There is no indication of whether the attack originated from Iranian sympathizers or from the Iranian Passive Defense Organization under brigadier general Gholamreza Jalali. Reuters reports that there was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities. However, Frank Coggrave of Guidance Software, believes it is a sign of the times. “Following Stuxnet,” he said, “all Governments realize that Cyber Warfare is doable. So they do it. It will become a ‘normal’ weapon of statecraft and we will see governments increasing attacks on things they don’t like. Cyber attacks are difficult to attribute, sophisticated and targeted and increasingly successful, so they’re perfect from the attackers perspective.”