Iran-Linked Cyberattack Tests Britain’s Energy Defenses

• An Iran-linked cyberattack reportedly shut down a small UK energy generator for four days in July.
• UK officials said the affected generator was small and that the incident posed no threat to the wider electricity system or national generation capacity.
• The attack comes amid broader warnings from the NCSC that hostile states are increasingly targeting UK infrastructure.

An attack on an energy facility which was shut down for four days last month was carried out by hackers linked to the Iranian regime.

The cyberattack, which is believed to be the first time Iranian-affiliated hackers have successfully infiltrated a UK energy facility, shutting it down.

A government spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the energy facility was a “small scale energy generator.”

The spokesperson added that “at no point was there a risk to the wider energy system” or the country’s overall energy generation. It is understood that the site is not critical infrastructure.

Government officials would not confirm which site was affected but cited national security concerns. Responding to the attack, the government wrote to businesses and instructed power company chief executives with advice.

The cyberattack reportedly took place at the same time as a sequence of other attacks on US water infrastructure that affected 12 American states, according to the Telegraph.

Warnings over ‘collateral impacts’ of Iran-linked hacking

In March the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ and responsible for responding to serious cyber attacks in the UK, raised concern over cyber security threats from Iranian-linked hackers after the conflict in the Middle East.

The NCSC warned that UK organisations “should prepare to respond to the risk of collateral impacts in the UK from Iran-linked hacktivists.”

“Iranian state and Iran-linked cyber actors almost certainly currently maintain at least some capability to conduct cyber activity,” the NCSC said.

In a speech in June, NCSC chief executive Richard Horne said it had successfully dealt with over 200 cyberattacks affecting the UK’s critical infrastructure in the year until May, and said three-quarters of these attacks were linked to hostile states.

Earlier this year, Horne warned that the most significant cyberattacks in the UK have been carried out by hostile states including Iran, China, and Russia.

By City AM

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