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Cailianshe News, August 15 (Editor: Niu Zhanlin)Iran’s central bank and several of the country’s banks suffered a major cyberattack on Wednesday, causing widespread disruptions to Iran’s banking system, according to media reports. Initial assessments suggest this could be one of the largest cyberattacks against Iran’s national infrastructure.

The hackers are also said to have stolen customer information from several Iranian banks. The cyberattack comes at a time of heightened geopolitical risk in the Middle East, and has therefore attracted high attention.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the nation about the threat of unconventional warfare, saying: "The United States, Britain and the Zionists have exaggerated their capabilities in order to spread fear among our people. The enemy's power is not as strong as advertised, and we must rely on ourselves."

He also claimed: "The enemy's goal is to use psychological tactics to force us to retreat politically and economically so as to achieve their goals."

Many Iranians believe the cyberattack was carried out by Israeli intelligence, but there is no substantial evidence for these accusations.

Israeli media also reported a major cyber attack on Iran's banking system, but Iranian officials have not yet confirmed the news and the country's media has remained silent.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials and Western media have claimed that Iranian hackers are actively working to influence and interfere in the upcoming U.S. election, a charge Iran has denied.

Israel has long been targeting Iran's nuclear program through cyber attacks, some of which have successfully disrupted the operation of key facilities. The most well-known case was the 2010 Stuxnet worm attack, a highly sophisticated cyber weapon designed to destroy centrifuges in Iran's nuclear facilities. At least one-fifth of the centrifuges at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment base were destroyed due to infection with Stuxnet.

In recent years, Israel is believed to have expanded its cyberattacks to civilian infrastructure, such as railways, dams, gas stations and power plants, with the goal of overthrowing the Iranian regime by sparking nationwide unrest or distracting the government from dealing with daily unrest. Meanwhile, Iran has also fought back, with Israeli and American officials and experts claiming that the Iranian government is linked to some hacker groups targeting Israeli companies.

In December, a major cyberattack knocked out most (nearly 70%) of Iran's gas stations, targeting widely used payment software, with Tehran blaming Israel and the United States for the disruption.

The world is currently paying attention to when Iran will launch an attack on Israel. Israel claims that it is prepared to be attacked, but it does not know when the attack will occur and in what form it will take.

Experts on Middle East issues believe that this war is probably difficult to avoid. Iran needs to re-establish deterrence, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu must let the war continue in order to solve increasingly serious domestic problems. The international community is also powerless to stop it.

(Niu Zhanlin, Cailianshe)