Central Bank of Iran. Photo: wiki commons.

The Central Bank of Iran was hit with a cyber attack on Tuesday which brought down the bank’s internet connection, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA).

An analyst quoted by the news service said the attack brought down the CBI’s website and the” internal network’s going offline for an extended period is a sign there was a cyber-attack against the Central Bank of Iran.”

The attack occurred the same day in which negotiations in Moscow over Iran’s nuclear program failed to produce any positive results.  European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton told reporters there are “significant gaps” between the positions of Iran and world powers when it comes to an agreement on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Heydar Moslehi, the intelligence minister for Iran, said on Thursday that cyber attacks against the Islamic Republic have increased since the meetings in Moscow ended.

On Wednesday, websites associated with the highest levels of Israeli government were unavailable as well.  This came one day after the Washington Post published a story that Israel and the United States worked on a computer virus named “Flame”, in order to collect information inside Iran as a prelude to cyber-attacks aimed at slowing the Iranian nuclear program.