WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th August, 2019) A covert US cyberattack against Iran impacted the Islamic Republic's ability to attack ships in the Persian Gulf, media reported on Wednesday.
A secret US cyberattack in June wiped a critical database used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to plot attacks against oil tankers, at least temporarily, the New York Times reported citing a senior US official.
According to the report, Iran is still trying to recover information that was destroyed in the June 20 attack and restart computer systems that were taken offline.
Senior US officials disclosed the results of the cyber strike in part to squash doubts within the Trump administration about whether the benefits of the operation outweigh its cots.
US-Iran relations have been in a downward spiral since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement last spring. The United States has since proclaimed it intends to bring down Iran's sale of oil to zero and reintroduced sanctions on almost all major sectors of the middle Eastern nation's economy.
The situation worsened over recent months following a series of attacks on commercial tankers in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz, for which the United States and its allies have blamed Iran. Tehran has denied all accusations of involvement in the attacks.
