Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran's information minister, says no successful American cyber-attack has been carried out
Iran claims it has foiled all US cyber-attacks launched after it shot down a spy drone last week - though credited America for 'making a lot of effort'.
Telecommunications minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi made the claim on Twitter yesterday after American media reported a cyber-attack had crippled Iranian missile control systems and a spy network.
Jahromi's remarks are the latest barbs to be traded between the two nations in a tit-for-tat escalation that has led many to fear all-out warfare.
The latest episode was sparked last week when Iran shot down an American spy drone which it claimed violated its airspace - a claim Washington denies.
President Trump had ordered airstrikes against a number of Iranian military targets, but called them off at the last moment fearing they would not be 'proportionate'.
Reports then emerged in US media that Washington had launched cyber-attacks against Iran instead.
On Sunday, Jahromi tweeted: 'The media are asking about the veracity of the alleged cyber attack against Iran.
'No successful attack has been carried out by them, although they are making a lot of effort.
'Last year we neutralised 33 million attacks with the (national) firewall.'
Azari Jahromi called attacks on Iranian computer networks 'cyber-terrorism', referring to Stuxnet, the first publicly known example of a virus used to attack industrial machinery, which targeted Iran's nuclear facilities in November 2007.
Stuxnet, widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered in 2010 after it was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility in the Iranian city of Natanz.
Jahromi made the claim on Twitter Monday after American media reported that cyber-attacks had crippled Iranian missile systems and a spy network
The United States has also accused Iran of stepping up cyber attacks.
America is expected to tighten sanctions on Iran Monday as the two countries continue a tense standoff that can be traced back to President Trump's decision to tear up the Iran nuclear deal signed under the Obama administration.
Both nations say they want to avoid going to war, but tensions have spiralled amid attacks on tankers and the shooting down of a US drone by Iran in the Gulf.
Abbas Mousavi, Iran's foreign minister, said on Monday Tehran welcomes any defusion of tensions in the Gulf region, but did not suggest how this would happen.
That message was undercut by navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, who warned that Iran is capable of shooting down another US drone - if it chooses.
'I can assure you that this firm response can be repeated, and the enemy knows it,' he told the Tasim news agency.
Meanwhile US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo departed Washington for visits to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two American allies in the region, to build consensus about how to move forward.
'We'll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned and how we can build out a global coalition' on Iran, Pompeo said.
National Security Adviser John Bolton was dispatched to Israel where he met with Benjamin Netanyahu and cautioned that America's decision not to strike Iran should not be mistaken for weakness.
'No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East,' he said of Iran.
On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a US-made MQ9 Reaper 'spy drone' - also widely used for carrying out military strikes - had encroached his country's airspace on May 26.
He made the allegation in a tweet that included a map purporting to show the drone had violated Iranian airspace.
Tensions have escalated between the two countries ever since the US withdrew last year from a nuclear pact. Pictured: Iran's firepower in the Gulf
Washington has already mounted a full-scale cyber attack on Iran in the wake of an unmanned US drone being shot down. Pictured: US drone debris recovered from Iranian waters
It was dismissed as 'child-like' by Pompeo.
