USA/Iranian Cyber War

Should we be concerned?

What we know?

It was reported by the ‘Washington Post’ on the 24^th June 2019 the Trump Administration launched a cyberattack against Iranian rocket and missile launching systems.  The source of this information is unknown, but it cites current and former U.S Government officials, although Iranian Telecommunications Minister Mohammed Javad Azari has said ‘No successful attack has been carried out by them’.  Spokeswomen Heather Babb has said ‘As a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyber-space operations, intelligence or planning’.  In truth we know very little about the reported attack, however cybersecurity companies who regularly monitor increases such as FireEye and CrowdStrike in spear phishing attempts have seen an increase.  It is not clear if this is down to increased awareness or a real rise, but this has been coupled with warnings from the US government including messages such as ‘Non-military targets have greater effect’.  In this case there is a cause to believe that there is a case for increased vigilance, not just for governmental targets but for private sector targets.

What types of attacks should we be looking for?

CrowdStrike have shared images of spear-phishing emails with news agency AP and FireEye have confirmed one that appears to come from the Executive Office of the President seeming to be trying to recruit targets for economics adviser positions.  We also know there is a long history of tensions between the US and Iran, and past attempts from Iran have typically included software to erase data.  We should however give the threat a wide birth as attacks that are often shrouded in secrecy, and as companies typically do not want to give away their security vulnerabilities.  This secrecy is inherent for all sides in cyber-war which breeds anxieties, and although traditional cyber-attacks have been targeting infrastructure targets such as banks and ‘energy supply’ we can expect these targets to broaden.  In the event of a physical war a broader cyber-attack would allow Iran to bring the war home to the USA and allies and inflict harm.  One risk is that they may have already embedded vulnerabilities for ’advanced persistent threats’ that they would exploit if the political situation evolved.