WarSclerotic

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for increased efforts to combat enemy “infiltration,” in a speech to officials in charge of cyber defense, state television reported on Sunday.

“In the face of the enemy’s complex practices, our civil defense should … confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date … action,” Khamenei told the officials.

The report did not detail the “infiltration” to which Khamenei was referring.

Iranian officials have long warned of Western cultural influences through entertainment, social media and the internet as a threat against Islamic and revolutionary values.

A decade ago, Iran’s nuclear program was hit by Stuxnet, a virus deployed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to sabotage Iran’s uranium enrichment facility.

Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s civil defense agency, said on Sunday that Iran had recently neutralized a new version of Stuxnet.

“Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts … and was trying to enter our systems,” Jalali was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency at a news conference marking Iran’s civil defense day. He did not give further details.