WASHINGTON (Guardian News): The US military launched a cyber-attack onIranian weapons systems on Thursday, according to sources, as PresidentDonald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional strike inresponse to Iran’s downing of a US surveillance drone.
The hack disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled its rocket andmissile launchers, two officials told the Associated Press, and wereconducted with approval from Trump. A third official confirmed the broadoutlines of the strike. All spoke on condition of anonymity because theywere not authorised to speak publicly about the operation.
Two of the officials said the attacks, which specifically targeted computersystems of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had beenprovided as options after two oil tankers were bombed. The IRGC has beendesignated a foreign terrorist group by the Trump administration.
Over the past year US officials have focused on persistently engaging withadversaries in cyberspace and undertaking more offensive operations.
Tensions with Iran have escalated since the US withdrew last year from the2015 nuclear deal with Iran and began a policy of “maximum pressure”. Iranhas since been hit by multiple rounds of sanctions.
Tensions spiked this past week after Iran shot down an unmanned US drone –an incident that nearly led to a conventional US military strike againstIran on Thursday evening.
The cyberattacks are the latest chapter in the US and Iran’s ongoinghacking of each other.
In recent weeks hackers believed to be working for the Iranian governmenthave targeted US government agencies, as well as sectors of the economyincluding finance, oil and gas, sending waves of spear-phishing emails,according to representatives of cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike andFireEye, which track such activity. This new campaign appears to havestarted shortly after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on theIranian petrochemical sector this month.
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It was not known if any of the hackers managed to gain access to thetargeted networks.
“Both sides are desperate to know what the other side is thinking,” saidJohn Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye. “You canabsolutely expect the regime to be leveraging every tool they haveavailable to reduce the uncertainty about what’s going to happen next,about what the US’s next move will be.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement released onSaturday that its agency tasked with infrastructure security has been awareof a recent rise in malicious cyber activities directed at US governmentagencies by Iranian regime actors and proxies.
The National Security Agency would not discuss Iranian cyber actionsspecifically, but said in a statement to the AP on Friday that “there havebeen serious issues with malicious Iranian cyber actions in the past”.
“In these times of heightened tensions, it is appropriate for everyone tobe alert to signs of Iranian aggression in cyberspace and ensureappropriate defences are in place.”
