Iran's atomic energy organization says e-mail was hacked, state media says

Iranian hacker group "Black Reward" hacked into Iran's atomic energy organization's email server.

 Hacker (illustrative) (photo credit: PXFUEL)
Hacker (illustrative)
(photo credit: PXFUEL)

Iran's atomic energy organization said that an e-mail server of one of its subsidiaries was hacked from a foreign country, leading to some information being published online, state media reported on Sunday.

"This move was made with the aim of attracting public attention," the atomic energy organization's general department of public diplomacy and information said.

Could Iranian hacker group "Black Reward" be behind this?

Iranian hacker group "Black Reward" announced over the weekend that it had successfully hacked the internal email system of Iran’s Nuclear Power Production and Development Company and that it was releasing 50GB of files to the web.

"We will publish the download links respectively in the next few hours after uploading the information in the online file sharing service anonymously "namely anonfiles," the group wrote on their Instagram channel.

 On-again, off-again talks on Iran: International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna (credit: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)
On-again, off-again talks on Iran: International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna (credit: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)

The files include "Raw version and backups related to Iran Atomic Energy Production and Development Company," "Version cleaned and visible in the browser along with about 100 thousand email messages" and "separated and sorted version of documents and information."

The group threatened to leak the "dirty nuclear project of the Mullahs’ regime," as it wrote if it does not release political prisoners and protesters detained during the ongoing nationwide protests across the Islamic Republic within 24 hours.

"24 difficult and important hours for the Islamic Republic started from this moment," the hacker group wrote on Twitter.