McCain added, “We know the leaks have to come from the administration. And so we're at the point where perhaps we need an investigation.” This call seems to be gathering pace. Two-times candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Pat Buchanan concluded in an article in WND yesterday, “It is not improbable that officials on Obama’s national security team, if not White House aides, will soon be addressing a federal grand jury.”
Surprisingly, perhaps, the idea of using the legal system to obtain redress for cyber attacks also seems to be gathering pace in Iran itself. Last week Hassan Beheshtipour, an Iranian researcher and documentary producer wrote in Press TV, “It seems that in addition to defending itself against this undeclared cyber war which targets its national interests, Iran must launch such initiatives as filing a lawsuit with international legal authorities on the US cyberwar against Iran.” But he accepted that it would be difficult because “international laws on this phenomenon are not clear-cut yet,” and added that “the issue was not seriously followed by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.”
This weekend, however, the FARS news agency reported that General Seyed Kamal Hadianfar, the head of the information production and exchange department of the law enforcement police, has talked about legal rather than retaliatory redress. He was discussing April’s cyber attack against the Iranian oil industry. Earlier, notes FARS, deputy oil minister Hamdollah Mohammadnejad had said that the “nature of the attack and the identity of the attackers” had been discovered and that in general, “the attack was carried out by virus penetration and was aimed at stealing and destroying data and information.” It has not been made clear whether Stuxnet, Flame or something entirely different was behind the virus penetration.
Now Hadianfor has explicitly announced that “Two American IPs were identified in the (cyber) attack against the oil ministry.”
“Noting that the Iranian foreign ministry and Interpol have pursued the case,” reports FARS, “he said that the US should disclose the identities of the two IPs to Iran so that the country can identify those who have embarked on the act of sabotage (and file a lawsuit against them).”