'Sophisticated' cyber-attack hits BBC

According to reports coming in, the British Broadcasting Corporation suffered a cyber-attack of a sophisticated nature. The attack, according to Director-general, Mark Thompson follows close on the heels of a campaign led by Iranian authorities against the company’s Persian service. It has been reported that the cyber-attack rendered the satellite feeds into Iran jammed, while also swamping the company’s London phone lines with automated calls. Reports also add that in his speech, which Thompson made to address the cyber-attack, he, albeit not directly, accused Tehran of being the one to have orchestrated the cyber-attacks on the British Broadcasting Corporation, by stating that “the coincidence of the attacks as “self-evidently suspicious””.

Suffers a hack! 

Apparently, BBC’s Persian news service hasn’t been having a smooth run. Reportedly, last month, Thompson raised allegations against Iranian authorities, accusing them of arresting and threatening the families of BBC journalists, in a bid to get them to quit the Persian news service, altogether. BBC’s Persian news service provide Farsi-language TV, radio and online services. Western journalists, reportedly find it difficult to work in Iran, since the government there perceive foreign media with suspicion. Hence, very few Western journalists are permitted to work there. 

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Further in this statement, Thompson said, “It now looks as if those who seek to disrupt or block BBC Persian may be widening their tactics. There was a day recently when there was a simultaneous attempt to jam two different satellite feeds of BBC Persian into Iran, to disrupt the Service’s London phone-lines by the use of multiple automatic calls, and a sophisticated cyber-attack on the BBC. It is difficult, and may prove impossible, to confirm the source of these attacks, though attempted jamming of BBC services into Iran is nothing new and we regard the coincidence of these different attacks as self-evidently suspicious.”

Reports further state that despite, all the employees of BBC’s Persian service working outside Iran; authorities in Tehran have been arresting and forcing their relatives living in Iran. Although, Thompson did not reveal further about the details on the cyber-attack, he did state that they are trying to ensure that the “vital service continues to reach the people who need it.”

Reuters