HELSINKI: A scientist claiming to work for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran told a Finnish cyber-security group that Tehran's nuclear programme had been the victim of a new cyber attack, the group said on Wednesday.

Mikko Hypponen, the research head for the Finnish firm F-Secure, said he received a series of emails over the weekend from Iran. “The only thing we can confirm is that these emails were coming from inside the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” Hypponen said.

“Whether he was telling the truth we don't know. It does sound a bit far-fetched.” Hypponen said the researcher claimed the nuclear programme was compromised by a new worm that affected computer networks and said a hacking tool called Metasploit was used.

“He said that the IT staff had sent an email, an internal email, explaining that there has been an attack and had some details of the attack including the Metasploit reference,” Hypponen said.—AFP