Iran rejects US hacking charges

Iran has rejected recent US charges that alleged Iranian hackers conducted cyber attacks against American targets, saying Washington is not in a position to level such accusations.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran, which itself has suffered extensive damage from complex cyber attacks supported by certain governments, has always been the front-runner in collective international efforts to counter cyber crimes,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Saturday.

"The Islamic Republic has never had dangerous measures in the cyber space on its agenda and does not support such activities," he added.

On Thursday, the US government charged several alleged Iranian hackers in absentia with coordinating a campaign of cyber assaults on dozens of American banks and a dam in New York State between 2011 and 2013.

The US Justice Department announced the indictment of seven allegedly Iranian hackers, which was filed in a federal court in New York City.

The indictment described the suspects as “experienced computer hackers” and accused them of conspiracy to commit computer hacking while employed by two Iran-based private computer companies.

In his Saturday remarks, Jaberi Ansari said "the US government, which put millions of innocent people at the risk of an environmental disaster through cyber attacks against Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities, is not in a position to level accusations against the citizens of other countries, including those of Iran, without substantiated evidence.”

He was referring to the 2010 cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities with the Stuxnet computer malware, jointly developed by the US and the Israeli regime.

Iran has always underlined the need for regulating the cyber space with the supervision of all governments, the Iranian official said.

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