Report: Rise of the Iranian Cyber Threat

Report: Rise of the Iranian Cyber Threat

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

A recently published cybersecurity report warns against the rising Iranian cyber threat, in light of the general rise in the scale and scope of the cybersecurity landscape.

Iranian_national_flag_(tehran) featureThe report, published by cybersecurity company Mandiant, concluded that the list of potential victims has expanded, along with the rest of the cyber threats landscape. Hostile elements – hackers, state authorities, criminals, etc. – use cyber attacks to advance many different goals, economic or political. They no longer limit themselves to searching for valuable, sensitive information kept safe by commercial firms, but look for ways to advance their ideologies, create physical destruction and influence global decision makers.

According to the HS Today report the writers also focus on the Iranian cyber threat, a threat that became more and more severe over the last year. According to the writers Iran has been considered a medium-level player in cyberspace, one level below China and Russia, although recently experts began taking Iran more seriously and are discussing the Islamic republic’s hostile acts towards critical infrastructures.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

According to Mandiant experts most Iranian attacks targeted companies in the energy sector, with several recorded attacks against U.S. government targets. The attacks themselves weren’t particularly sophisticated, relying on publicly available tools and exploiting known vulnerabilities – so the technical capabilities of Iranian cyber warriors still aren’t considered particularly threatening. Iran’s hostility towards the west, however, keeps intensifying, and its willingness to attack American and Western targets is a significant threat.

The experts concluded that the diplomatic efforts between Iran and the West, concerning Iran’s nuclear program, might have a great effect of the Islamic republic’s hostile cyber activities.