{"id":12761,"date":"2025-06-25T06:06:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T06:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/12761\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T06:06:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T06:06:16","slug":"iranian-backed-hackers-go-to-work-after-us-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/12761\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian-backed hackers go to work after US strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Hackers backing Tehran have targeted U.S. banks, defense contractors and oil industry companies following American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities<\/a> \u2014 but so far have not caused widespread disruptions to critical infrastructure or the economy.<\/p>\n

But that could change if the ceasefire between Iran and Israel<\/a> collapses or if independent hacking groups supporting Iran make good on promises to wage their own digital conflict against the U.S., analysts and cyber experts say.<\/p>\n

The U.S. strikes could even prompt Iran, Russia, China and North Korea to double down on investments in cyberwarfare<\/a>, according to Arnie Bellini, a tech entrepreneur and investor. <\/p>\n

Bellini noted that hacking operations are much cheaper than bullets, planes or nuclear arms \u2014 what defense analysts call kinetic warfare. America may be militarily dominant, he said, but its reliance on digital technology poses a vulnerability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just showed the world: You don\u2019t want to mess with us kinetically,\u201d said Bellini, CEO of Bellini Capital. \u201cBut we are wide open digitally. We are like Swiss cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hackers have hit banks and defense contractors<\/p>\n

Two pro-Palestinian hacking groups claimed they targeted more than a dozen aviation firms, banks and oil companies following the U.S. strikes over the weekend. <\/p>\n

The hackers detailed their work in a post on the Telegram messaging service and urged other hackers to follow their lead, according to researchers at the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the groups\u2019 activity.<\/p>\n

The attacks were denial-of-service attacks, in which a hacker tries to disrupt a website or online network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe increase attacks from today,\u201d one of the hacker groups, known as Mysterious Team, posted Monday.<\/p>\n

Federal authorities say they are on guard for additional attempts by hackers to penetrate U.S. networks. <\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security issued a public bulletin<\/a> Sunday warning of increased Iranian cyber threats. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement Tuesday urging organizations that operate critical infrastructure like water systems, pipelines or power plants to stay vigilant. <\/p>\n

While it lacks the technical abilities of China<\/a> or Russia, Iran has long been known as a \u201cchaos agent\u201d<\/a> when it comes to using cyberattacks to steal secrets, score political points or frighten opponents. <\/p>\n

Cyberattacks mounted by Iran\u2019s government may end if the ceasefire holds<\/a> and Tehran looks to avoid another confrontation with the U.S. But hacker groups could still retaliate on Iran\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

In some cases, these groups have ties to military or intelligence agencies. In other cases, they act entirely independently. More than 60 such groups have been identified by researchers at the security firm Trustwave.<\/p>\n

These hackers can inflict significant economic and psychological blows<\/a>. Following Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, for instance, hackers penetrated an emergency alert app used by some Israelis and directed it to inform users that a nuclear missile was incoming.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt causes an immediate psychological impact,\u201d said Ziv Mador, vice president of security research at Trustwave\u2019s SpiderLabs, which tracks cyberthreats.<\/p>\n

Economic disruption, confusion and fear are all the goals of such operations, said Mador, who is based in Israel. \u201cWe saw the same thing in Russia-Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collecting intelligence is another aim for hackers<\/p>\n

While Iran lacks the cyberwarfare capabilities of China<\/a> or Russia, it has repeatedly tried<\/a> to use its more modest operations to try to spy on foreign leaders<\/a> \u2014 something national security experts predict Tehran is almost certain to try again as it seeks to suss out President Donald Trump\u2019s next moves.<\/p>\n

Last year, federal authorities charged three Iranian operatives with trying to hack Trump\u2019s presidential campaign. It would be wrong to assume Iran has given up those efforts<\/a>, according to Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency cybersecurity expert who is now vice president of research and development at Hunter Strategy, a Washington-based cybersecurity firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fairly certain that these limited resources are being used for intelligence collection to understand what Israel or the U.S. might be planning next, rather than performing destructive attacks against U.S. commercial organizations,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has cut cybersecurity programs and staff<\/p>\n

Calls to bolster America\u2019s digital defense come as the Trump administration has moved to slash some cybersecurity programs as part of its effort to shrink the size of government.<\/p>\n

CISA<\/a> has placed staffers who worked on election security on leave<\/a> and cut millions of dollars in funding<\/a> for cybersecurity programs for local and state elections. <\/p>\n

The CIA<\/a>, NSA<\/a> and other intelligence agencies also have seen reductions in staffing. Trump abruptly fired Gen. Timothy Haugh<\/a>, who oversaw the NSA and the Pentagon\u2019s Cyber Command.<\/p>\n

The Israel-Iran conflict shows the value of investments in cybersecurity and cyber offense, Mador said. He said Israel\u2019s strikes on Iran, which included attacks on nuclear scientists<\/a>, required sophisticated cyberespionage that allowed Israel to track its targets.<\/p>\n

Expanding America\u2019s cyber defenses will require investments in education as well as technical fixes to ensure connected devices or networks aren\u2019t vulnerable, said Bellini, who recently contributed $40 million toward a new cybersecurity center at the University of South Florida. <\/p>\n

There is a new arms race when it comes to cyberwar, Bellini said, and it\u2019s a contest America can\u2019t afford to lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Wile E. Coyote vs. the Road Runner,\u201d Bellini said. \u201cIt will go back and forth, and it will never end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Hackers backing Tehran have targeted U.S. banks, defense contractors and oil industry companies following American…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[97,13337,69,57,13336,346,83,3461,99,13340,3097,8132,13342,50,80,158,13339,3676,13341,67,132,68,96,93,107,13338],"class_list":{"0":"post-12761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","10":"tag-cybercrime","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-hacking","14":"tag-information-security","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-iran-government","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-jake-williams","19":"tag-middle-east","20":"tag-military-and-defense","21":"tag-military-technology","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-technology","25":"tag-timothy-haugh","26":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","27":"tag-u-s-national-security-agency","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-war-and-unrest","32":"tag-washington-news","33":"tag-world-news","34":"tag-ziv-mador"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114742505209743301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}