Iran targeted by apparent cyberattack amid protests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The website of Iran's Central Bank was briefly taken down on Wednesday as the Anonymous hacking group claimed it had targeted the websites of several Iranian state agencies.

The apparent cyberattack came amid days of protests over the death of a woman who was detained by the country's morality police for allegedly wearing her Islamic headscarf too loosely. It also came hours before Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi was to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Central Bank spokesman Mostafa Qamarivafa denied that the bank itself was hacked, saying only that the website was “inaccessible” because of an attack on a server that hosts it, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency. The website was later restored.

The Culture Ministry's website was also unavailable as of Wednesday afternoon.

The shadowy Anonymous group said it hacked other Iranian state agencies, including state TV and the office of the presidential spokesman.

Iran has been the target of several cyberattacks in recent years.

In February, dissident hackers put up an anti-government message on a website that streams state television programming. Last year, an online group released video footage from inside Iran's notorious Evin prison that it claimed to have acquired through hacking.

Later that year, a cyberattack crippled gas stations across the country, creating long lines of angry motorists unable to get subsidized fuel for days. Messages accompanying the attack appeared to refer to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Other attacks, which Iran has blamed on Israel, have targeted its nuclear program and industrial sites.

Iranians have been protesting for days over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who was arrested by the morality police last...