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Iran Signs Memorandum to Join Asian Security Body Founded by Russia, China

A general view of Tehran, Iran. Reuters file photo
A general view of Tehran, Iran. Reuters file photo
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Iran Signs Memorandum to Join Asian Security Body Founded by Russia, China

A general view of Tehran, Iran. Reuters file photo
A general view of Tehran, Iran. Reuters file photo

Iran has signed a Memorandum of Obligations to become a permanent member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Iran's foreign minister said on Thursday, as Tehran seeks to overcome economic isolation amid US sanctions.

"By signing the document for full membership of the SCO, now Iran has entered a new stage of various economic, commercial, transit and energy cooperation," Hossein Amirabdollahian wrote on his Instagram page, according to Reuters.

Last year, the rapidly-expanding central Asian security body, whose founding heavyweights are China and Russia, approved Iran's application for accession, while Tehran's hardline rulers called on members to help it form a mechanism to avert sanctions imposed by the West over its disputed nuclear program.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in the Silk Road oasis of Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Thursday to attend a summit of the organization. He was expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian media reported.

The body, formed in 2001 as a talking shop for Russia, China and ex-Soviet states in Central Asia, expanded four years ago to include India and Pakistan, with a view to playing a bigger role as counterweight to Western influence in the region.

Iran will now be able to take part in meetings, although it is likely to take some time to achieve full membership, deputy secretary-general of the organization Grigory Logvinov told Russian state TV, which also reported the signing.

Iran's economy has been hit hard since 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump abandoned Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, including Russia and China.

Months of indirect talks between Iran and US President Joe Biden's administration have hit a dead end over several obstacles to reviving the nuclear pact, under which Tehran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

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Iran Pays Millions in Ransom to End Cyberattack on Banks

Iranians at a bank branch in Tehran (IRNA)
Iranians at a bank branch in Tehran (IRNA)
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Iran Pays Millions in Ransom to End Cyberattack on Banks

Iranians at a bank branch in Tehran (IRNA)
Iranians at a bank branch in Tehran (IRNA)

A massive cyberattack that hit Iran last month threatened the stability of its banking system and forced the country's regime to agree to a ransom deal of millions of dollars, POLITICO reported on Thursday.

The newspaper said an Iranian firm paid at least $3 million in ransom last month to stop an anonymous group of hackers from releasing individual account data from as many as 20 domestic banks in what appears to be the worst cyberattack the country has seen, quoting industry analysts and western officials briefed on the matter.

A group known as IRLeaks, which has a history of hacking Iranian companies, was likely behind the breach, the officials said.

The hackers are said to have initially threatened to sell the data they collected, which included the personal account and credit card data of millions of Iranians, on the dark web unless they received $10 million in cryptocurrency, but later settled on a smaller sum.

Iran’s authoritarian regime pushed for a deal, fearing that word of the data theft would destabilize the country’s already-wobbly financial system, which is under intense strain amid the international sanctions the country faces, the officials said.

Iran never acknowledged the mid-August breach, which forced banks to shut down cash machines across the country.

IRleaks entered the banks’ servers via a company called Tosan, which provides data and other digital services to Iran’s financial sector, the officials said.

Using Tosan, the hackers appear to have siphoned data from both private banks and Iran’s central bank. Of Iran’s 29 active credit institutions, as many as 20 were hit, including the Bank of Industry and Mines and the Post Bank of Iran.

Though the attack was reported at the time by Iran International, an opposition news outlet, neither the suspected hackers nor the ransom demands were disclosed.

Iran’s supreme leader delivered a cryptic message in the wake of the attack, blaming the US and Israel for “spreading fear among our people,” without acknowledging the country’s banks were under assault.

Despite the growing tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel, people familiar with the Iranian banking hack told POLITICO that IRLeaks is affiliated with neither the US nor Israel.