Iran gas stations reopen but payment issues persist after alleged hack chokes supply
Less than half of stations able to take subsidized fuel cards after pumps shut down, Tehran says, with Israel-linked group claiming cyberattack in response to Iranian aggression
Fuel pumps in Iran were reportedly back online Tuesday morning, after a hacking group previously linked to Israel claimed on Monday to have paralyzed gas stations across the Islamic Republic.
The CEO of National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company Jafar Salari Nesab told Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA that pumps were fully operational almost immediately after the cyberattack, though only 40% of the country’s gas stations could take payment with a fuel card.
On Monday Iranian state media had reported that close to 70% of the country’s gas stations were out of service, citing a “software problem” as the cause.
The disruption caused problems with cards Iranians use to buy subsidized fuel, Deputy Oil Minister Jalil Salari said.
The group that took credit for the attack, known as “Gonjeshke Darande,” or “predatory sparrow,” said that it had disabled “a majority of the gas pumps throughout Iran,” adding that the attack was a “response to the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.”
The group claimed to have gained access to the payment systems of the impacted gas stations, as well as each station’s central server and management system.
Iran, a major oil producer, has among the cheapest fuel prices in the world, with a card that allows Iranians to buy up to 60 liters (16 gallons) per month at a subsidized rate of 15,000 rials (around 3 US cents) per liter.
The country has some 33,000 gas stations.
Fuel cards were introduced in 2007 with a view to reforming the subsidies system and curbing large-scale smuggling.
Following the system failure Monday, stations “disconnected the online system” and fuel was being supplied offline, Salari said.
The disruption caused long lines of cars outside some stations in Tehran while others were completely shuttered, according to an AFP correspondent.
Iranian-backed groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have stepped up attacks against Israel since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which began with a shock onslaught on October 7 in which Hamas terrorists massacred some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took around 240 hostages.
The group that claimed responsibility for the attack is believed to be linked to the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate.
It claimed responsibility for a cyberattack last year that forced the Iranian state-owned Khuzestan Steel Co. to halt production. A year earlier, the group targeted Iran’s fuel distribution system, paralyzing gas stations across the country.
Israel generally maintains a policy of ambiguity regarding its operations against Iran, but Israeli military correspondents, who are regularly briefed off-the-record by senior Israeli officials, strongly hinted that the Military Intelligence’s Unit 8200 was responsible for the 2022 cyberattack on the Iranian steel plant.
The reports prompted then-defense minister Benny Gantz to order an investigation into media leaks that harmed Israel’s “ambiguity policy.”
In recent years, Iran has seen a series of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, including its ports. Surveillance cameras in government buildings, including prisons, have also been hacked in the past.
The country disconnected much of its government infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus — widely believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation — disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the country’s nuclear sites in the late 2000s.
Iran, long sanctioned by the West, faces difficulties in getting up-to-date hardware and software, often relying on Chinese-manufactured electronics or older systems no longer being patched by manufacturers, making them easier for a potential hacker to target. Pirated versions of Windows and other software are common across Iran.
