US Officials Confirm Secret Cyber Attack on Iran After Saudi Oil Refineries Hit

Officials say cyber attack affected physical hardware

US officials have told Reuters that in response to the attacks on a pair of Saudi oil refineries in mid-September, the US carried out a cyber attack against Iran, damaging physical hardware in the process.

Such an attack has been alleged before, and these officials are only confirming on condition of anonymity, and even then are refusing to provide any details on what was actually attacked.

The Pentagon said they don’t discuss any of their cyber attacks, and so they are neither going to confirm or deny if they did it. Iran denied that they were attacked, suggesting the officials “must have dreamt it.”

The US has long carried out cyber attacks against Iran, but the details are never clear. Iran has an interest in not confirming when it happens, and downplaying the impact they are having.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.