Iran Steel manufacturer down due to cyberattack

A cyberattack at Khuzestan Steel Company, one of the major steel companies owned by the Iranian government made the production halted.

Khuzestan Steel Company, based in Ahvaz in the oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province, has a monopoly on steel production in Iran along with two other major state-owned firms.

Founded before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the company for decades afterward had some production lines supplied by German, Italian and Japanese companies.

The website of the company is down, while this was addressed in this writing. The company was forced to halt production to avoid damage to the production lines and impact on the supply chains it belongs to.

It’s been reported that the attack failed because at the time of the attack an electricity outage had interrupted the operations at the plant.

Local authorities expect the operation will be restored as soon as possible. Threat actors likely aimed at impacting the steel industry. Iran is one of the major producers of steel in the Middle East and among the top 10 in the world, according to the World Steel Association

The government of Teheran, nor the Khuzestan Steel Company, has attributed the attack to a specific threat actor.