Iran says cyberattack successfully foiled

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TEHRAN, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Iran says it has successfully countered a cyberattack by the Stuxnet computer worm on a power plant and other industries in the south of the country.

Officials are saying the attack was successfully pushed back and prevented from spreading, the BBC reported Wednesday.

"The Bandar Abbas electricity supply company has come under cyberattack," civil defense chief Ali Akbar Akhavanhe in the Hormozgan province said. "But we were able to prevent its expansion owing to our timely measures and the co-operation of skilled hackers."

The Stuxnet worm caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear enrichment activities in 2010 in an attack Tehran blamed on Israel and the United States.

In late 2011 Iran said some of its computer systems were infected by spyware believed to have been intended to gather data to be used in further cyberattacks, and in April this year a cyberattack on Iran's oil ministry and national oil company caused the government to take key oil facilities offline, the BBC reported.