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The Central Bank of Iran: The website was successfully blocked, but payment transactions continued
Photo: Xinhua/IMAGO
The sometimes violent protests after the death of a young woman who was arrested by the Iranian religious police have also reached the Internet.
According to their own statements, activists associated with the hacker group Anonymous successfully blocked the website of the Iranian central bank and several other government portals for hours.
Iran's central bank has now confirmed a cyber attack on its systems.
The bank had become the target of a DDoS attack, the Iranian news agency Tasnim reported on Wednesday, citing a spokesman.
In DDoS attacks, attackers overwhelm their victims' servers with a flood of data requests in order to paralyze them.
In Iran, the website was available again after some time.
The bank said internal systems were not affected by the attack.
No other effects are known.
A group associated with the Anonymous collective claimed responsibility for the attack in a Telegram channel, citing their solidarity with the protests in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini as the reason.
The information could not be verified.
The central bank's website was shut down worldwide, according to relevant audit services on the Internet.
Government sites and a state TV station are also said to have been the target of the broad-based attack.
The Iranian government had caused confusion even before the attacks.
The semi-state news agency had reported that the government had prepared restrictions on the internet because of the demonstrations.
However, the government has now contradicted the report: Communications Minister Issa Zarepour was misquoted.
tmk/dpa/AP/Reuters
