BBC Implies Cyber-Attack on Its Persian Service Came From Iran

BBC's Persian service, which provides Farsi-language TV, radio and online news, appears to have suffered a cyber-attack that officials are saying most likely would have been issued by Iranian authorities.

Reuters reports that the news service's broadcasts to Iran were inundated with attempts to jam satellites and that it received a slew of automated phone calls to its London office. Reuter's has more on the attack from BBC's director general Mark Thompson:

"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," he said.

"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," he added.

Reuters also notes that last month Thompson accused Iran of threatening families of BBC journalists in an effort to get them to quit.

BBC has said it is not providing timing or more details on the nature of the attack. BBC reports that email and other online services were inaccessible for some parts of the corporation on 1 March, but it has not been confirmed if this incident is related.

BBC states that Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

[H/T Gizmodo]