Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Gholamreza Jalali. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – Iran’s nuclear facilities experience as many as 50,000 cyber attacks a day and neighboring countries are cooperating with Israel to “steal” Iran’s clouds, a senior Iranian general claimed during a recent television interview.

Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Gholamreza Jalali told Iran’s Channel 5 TV in September that the 2010 Stuxnet cyber attack had the positive effect of “causing us to pay attention” to the cyber security of its nuclear installations.

These sites, said Jalali, who heads Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, experience as many as 50,000 cyber attacks per day, ranging from unimportant viruses that are automatically taken care of by security systems to what he referred to as “cyber weapons.” These, Jalali said, are advanced viruses with several encrypted layers, and which hide in, gather intelligence on and sabotage computer systems.

There are fewer than 10 cyber-weapon attacks per year, said Jalali, adding that Iran has thus far successfully defended itself from such attacks.