On 10/14, Thom Shanker & David Sanger reported for the New York Times on U.S. suspicions that Iran was behind several recent cyberattacks. Notably, the article cites U.S. intel officials who believe that the Iranians were behind cyberattacks on Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco and a sustained DDOS attack on major U.S. banks. These suspicions, in conjunction with SecDef Panetta’s recent remarks, indicates that an “emerging shadow war of attacks and counterattacks [may] already under way between the United States and Iran in cyberspace.” The article explained that the U.S. believes that an Iranian “cybercorps” is behind most of the attacks.
A few interesting tidbits from the NYT article:
- The Iranians want to demonstrate that they too can disrupt an economy. I don’t think their efforts have been as successful as U.S. led sanctions, unless these DDOS attacks are just a preview of things to come.
- The Iranians may have gotten programming help from Russia.
- Apparently there is a debate going on in the Obama administration over whether to openly admit the U.S. has used cyberweapons.
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