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The Invisible U.S.-Iran Cyber War

(U.S. Institute of Peace) Andrew Hanna - Cyberspace has turned into a near-unrestricted war zone for both the U.S. and Iran. Sustained U.S. cyber activities against Iran started in 2006 under the Bush administration. President Obama expanded the covert campaign to include the use of offensive cyber weapons against Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. In June 2019, the Trump administration retaliated against Iran's downing of a U.S. drone with a cyberattack on a Revolutionary Guard database used to plan attacks on tankers. The U.S. struck again in September 2019 after Iran attacked Saudi oil facilities. Iranian cyberattacks against the U.S. date back to 2009. Iranian hackers attacked U.S. banks in September 2012. In August 2017, a cyberattack tied to Iran nearly triggered an explosion at a Saudi petrochemical plant. In December 2018, the Department of Justice indicted two Iranian hackers for a ransomware attack that had crippled Atlanta's city government in March. In October 2019, Microsoft warned that an Iranian-government hacker group had tried to breach e-mail accounts associated with journalists, current and former U.S. government officials, and a U.S. presidential campaign.
2019-12-09 00:00:00
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