Iran

President Barack Obama has been fighting a clandestine cyberwar against foreign governments and al-Qaeda, and his efforts in that arena have far exceeded those of his predecessors, according to a new report.

The New York Times today published a wide-ranging report, adapted from an upcoming book, "Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power," by Times reporter David Sanger, on the Obama administration's use of cyberwarfare to take on Iran and potentially other countries or entities it views as a threat. Chief among the administration's targets was Iran's nuclear plants, … Read more

Web users in Iran and Syria attempting to use a proxy tool to freely surf the Internet are reportedly being tracked by a new Trojan.

The proxy software known as Simurgh is used by many Iranian and Syrian citizens to make it seem as if their secure Internet connections are coming from a different country. Such proxy programs are common ways to mask a user's PC and Internet information in order to circumvent local censorship restrictions.

But a back-doored verson of Simurgh discovered by researchers at the University of Toronto is carrying a payload of malware -- one designed … Read more

The Flame virus recently found in Iran could be used to infect other countries, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

As the United Nations agency charged with helping members protect their data networks, the ITU plans to issue a warning about the danger of Flame.

"This is the most serious (cyber) warning we have ever put out," Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator for the ITU, told Reuters. The warning will paint the virus as a "dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure," Reuters added.

Flame was recently identified as a culprit … Read more

The Iranian government said it will sue Google after the Internet company removed the name of the Persian Gulf from its mapping service.

The body of water between Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar was left nameless after the search giant removed the tag from Google Maps.

It is not clear why Google decided to remove the name, widely referred to as the Persian Gulf, or if it was caused by a bug in the system. A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

It does not explain why Google Earth keeps the name tag in place.

Iran'… Read more

Iran is cracking down on the use of foreign e-mail addresses.

The country's telecommunications ministry is now barring local banks, insurance companies, and phone operators from communicating with their clients using foreign e-mail providers, according to the AFP news service.

Based on information from Iranian news service Asr Ertebatat, the new order requires such industries to use addresses ending in the Iranian domain .ir, effectively preventing them from using such foreign providers as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or MSN.

Customers of such companies are also included in the ban, requiring them to use local e-mail addresses in order to do … Read more

An Iranian double agent working for Israel used a standard thumb drive carrying a deadly payload to infect Iran's Natanz nuclear facility with the highly destructive Stuxnet computer worm, according to a story by ISSSource.

Stuxnet quickly propagated throughout Natanz -- knocking that facility offline and at least temporarily crippling Iran's nuclear program -- once a user did nothing more than click on a Windows icon. The worm was discovered nearly two years ago.

ISSSource's report yesterday was based on sources inside the U.S. intelligence community.

Are the Iranians planning to cut access to the Internet in August and replace it with a national intranet that will make it easier to monitor? Not according to a statement by the ministry of communication and information technology.

AFP is reporting that an original April 1 story which triggered the report was untrue.

"The report is in no way confirmed by the ministry" and is "completely baseless," AFP quoted a spokesman from the country's ministry of communication and information technology.

A person answering the phone at the Iranian Interests Section of the Islamic Republic … Read more

Millions of Internet users in Iran could soon be permanently cut off from the Web, social networks, and e-mail.

In a statement released last week, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced plans to establish a national intranet within five months in an effort to create a "clean Internet," the International Business Times reported today. "All Internet Service Providers (ISP) should only present National Internet by August," Taghipour said in the statement.

Web sites such as Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo will be blocked and replaced by government-administered services such as Iran Mail … Read more

analysis President Bill Clinton's 1997 electronic embargo against Iran, which curbed its citizens' access to U.S.-based software and Web sites, continues to create legal hassles for American Web companies.

In August 1997, Clinton signed an executive order saying U.S. companies and individuals could not provide "goods, technology, or services to Iran" -- a decree that led to unintended consequences such as Utah-based Bluehost giving the boot to Iranian bloggers and opensource software site SourceForge.net denying access to Iranians.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's announcement yesterday, which was designed to complement … Read more