Revolutionary Guard General Gholamreza Jalali, who heads Iran’s national civil defense organization told reporters that officials have access to classified information should not be using smartphones.

ISNA student news agency reports that Jalali told reporters, “Official guidelines on this issue have been prepared which are in the process of approval. Because officials who are in possession of classified information should not be using smartphones, they should be using other mobile phones.” Elsewhere in the news sitting he said, “Normally information that enters smartphones is backed up which then cannot be deleted. This way the manufacturer of the mobile phone gains access to the information on the handheld. So those who use smartphones should be aware that the information that they have on their devices is easily accessible by phone manufacturers.”

Responding to questions about reports of alleged eavesdropping conducted on sites where nuclear talks have been held in Europe, he said, “That a country where we have hosted negotiations has provided information about the hotel and the venue of the talks to the enemy so they conduct espionage activities is against diplomatic rules and we strongly condemn this action and out diplomatic team must be sensitive about this and make the right response. We of course must always be aware of places where talks are held or where espionage is possible. Because of this one way to deal with this is to use local tools to confront espionage.”

These remarks come a few days after international reports that the computer system at the venues where officials of Iran were holding nuclear talks in Switzerland and Austria. It has been reported that an Israeli electronic bug had been installed on the electronic systems of three hotels where the P5+1 and Iran had been holding nuclear talks.

Iranian officials from the country’s embassies in Vienna and Bern have protested the possibility of such infiltrations by the host governments. According to Fars news agency, the foreign ministry of Austria has been requested to take the necessary security and counter-espionage measures at the venue of the talks.

Security concerns by authorities of the Islamic republic have been on the rise in recent years as more evidence has emerged about the country’s computer and IT vulnerabilities. In 2013 reports were published that indicated that even ayatollah Khamenei had been under some form of satellite surveillance by American intelligence agencies and that his conversations had been monitored.

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who had at that time had launched his revelations disclosed that American intelligence agencies had tracked ayatollah Khamenei’s visit to the province of Kurdistan in 2009. Iran’s Tasnim news agency belonging to the Revolutionary Guards had written that the US National Security Agency, along with a British security agency had monitored the conversations between the security team, the vehicles, and pilots of the aircraft and helicopters of ayatollah Khamenei during the trip. The report also said that ayatollah Khamenei’s speech which was made at a football stadium.

Another instance which has raised alarms in Tehran were the news reports about the Stuxnet virus that reportedly infiltrated and sabotaged the country’s nuclear related centrifuges at Natanz nuclear facility near the city of Isfahan. Later it became clear that this virus had been developed with the help of the US. Iranian officials at the time reported that the “benefits of the Stuxnet virus were greater than the damage it caused.” The head of Iran’s civil defense organization at the time claimed that Iran had responded to the Stuxnet attack and the that the damage caused by the response was 25 times bigger than what the Stuxnet virus accomplished, which he downplayed.

Earlier in 2013, the spokesman of Iran’s national security committee in parliament, the Majlis, had warned of the security threats posed by mobile phones, laptop computers, PCs and other electronic devices. Bulletin News, an intelligence website in Iran had also written earlier against the use of US-made iPhone smartphones by some Majlis representatives.

Jalal Yaghoubi
Rooz online