Iran’s railroad system came under cyberattack on July 10, with hackers posting fake messages about alleged train delays or cancelations on display boards at stations across the country. The hackers behind the strike were apparently trying to be funny, and along with messages saying “long delayed because of cyberattack” or “canceled,” they urged passengers to call for information, listing the phone number of the office of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The hackers attack led to chaos at rail stations in Iran. No group has so far taken responsibility of the incident. Earlier in the day, Fars said trains across Iran had lost their electronic tracking system. It wasn’t immediately clear if that was also part of the cyberattack.
Fars later removed its report and instead quoted the spokesman of the state railway company, Sadegh Sekri, as saying “the disruption” did not cause any problem for train services. In 2019, an error in the railway company’s computer servers caused multiple delays in train services.
In December that year, Iran’s telecommunications ministry said the country had defused a massive cyberattack on unspecified “electronic infrastructure” but provided no specifics on the purported attack.
