Experts warned on Wednesday that Iran will be ready “within months, if not faster” to strike the U.S. with a cyber attack, according to security firm Recorded Future.
“We assess that within months, if not sooner, American companies in the financial, critical infrastructure, oil, and energy sectors will likely face aggressive and destructive cyberattacks by Iranian state-sponsored actors,” said Recorded Future’s Priscilla Moriuchi, a former NSA analyst.
“The Islamic Republic may utilize contractors that are less politically and ideologically reliable — and trusted — and as a result, could be more difficult to control,” Moriuchi said.
Iran has conducted cyber attacks against the U.S. before. The U.S. indicted seven Iranians for hacking dozens of U.S. banks in 2016, causing millions of dollars in lost business, and attempting to open the flood gates of a New York dam, which was only prevented because it was manually disconnected for routine maintenance.
President Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal with Iran Tuesday that was a set to be an agreement with Iran and western nations to lift economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran limiting their nuclear program. (RELATED: Trump Asked What Would Happen If Iran Tried To Make A Nuke — His Answer Is Radioactive)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, presented alleged evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear program and that the deal is “based on lies.”
Documents obtained by Israel show “new and conclusive proof of the secret nuclear weapons program that Iran has been hiding for years from the international community in its secret atomic archive,” said Netanyahu in a speech April 30.
“First, Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons program — 100,000 secret files proved that they lied,” Netanyahu said. “Second, even after the deal, Iran continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons knowhow for future use. Why would a terrorist regime hide and meticulously catalog its secret nuclear files if not to use them at a later date. Third, Iran lied again in 2015 when it didn’t come clean to the [International Atomic Energy Agency] as required by the nuclear deal.”
Iranian hackers have been “probing Western critical infrastructure in multiple industries for future attack,” according to security firm FireEye.
“These efforts did not entirely disappear with the agreement, but they did refocus on Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East,” said John Hultquist, FireEye’s director of intelligence analysis. “With the dissolution of the agreement, we anticipate that Iranian cyberattacks will once again threaten Western critical infrastructure.”
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