Page 51 - IRANRptSep20

reinvigorating the country’s efforts to draw tourists, but some initiatives are proceeding.
Mohammad-Ebrahim Larijani, a marketing professional in Tehran, reportedly said videos about the country's attractions, historical monuments and resorts would not only be available in Persian but also in English, Arabic, Russian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, German, Chinese, French and Japanese.
Iranian embassies in several countries are also set to play a part in turning potential tourists’ attention to the wonders of ancient sites in Iran including two dozen UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Despite the stringent head covering rules for all women, the country saw a huge spike in visitors to its cities and tourist sites prior to the election of US President Donald Trump in late 2016.
Other countries that like Iran are on routes of the ancient Silk Road have benefitted from the Islamic Republic falling out of favour. They include Uzbekistan, which boasts several ancient Persianate cities including Bukhara and Samarkand.
Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman Sima-Sadat Lari has said 12 provinces
out of 31 in the country are counted as high-risk “red zones” in terms of
coronavirus (COVID-19) delivery, IRNA reported on July 14.
The spokeswoman said 173 patients had died of the coronavirus in the past 24
hours, increasing the overall death toll to 13,211, a decline on the previous
day, which saw more than 200 people die from the virus, according to official
statistics.
Provinces including Khuzestan, West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Khorasan
Razavi, Zanjan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Golestan, Hormozgan, Ilam, Bushehr
and Mazandaran are now under “Red Zone” status, with travelling to and from
those areas severely restricted.
Thirteen other provinces, including: Tehran, Fars, Ardabil, Isfahan, Alborz,
South Khorasan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad,
Lorestan, Hamadan, Yazd, Kerman and North Khorasan are also considered
“amber zones”.
Another 2,521 new cases of COVID-19 infection have been reported in the
country, raising the total number of infections to 262,173.
9.1.6 ​TMT sector news
FBI serves warning that Iranian hackers are using “the BIG-IP exploit” to attack US networks
The FBI has warned that Iranian hackers are using “the BIG-IP exploit” to attack US private and government networks, TechForge Media has reported​.
In the security alert, the FBI reportedly did not name any specific group or campaign but sources who spoke to ZDNet ​told​ the publication “the group is tracked by the larger cyber-security community under codenames such as Fox Kitten or Parasite”.
The alert indicates that the hackers are taking advantage of the CVE-2020-5902 vulnerability discovered in July.
TechForge Media wrote: “CVE-2020-5902 affects BIG-IP, a popular multi-purpose networking device manufactured by F5 Networks which is widely used in data centers and cloud environments. An exploit taking advantage of the BIG-IP bug has recently been spotted as part of a Mirai-based DDoS botnet.”
It added: “The majority of battles [between Iran and the US] today are fought in the cyber world, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. In fact, some experts claim the risk from cyber warfare is on par with nuclear and climate
51​ IRAN Country Report September 2020 www.intellinews.com