Iran Gets Serious About Hacking
For more than two years, Iranian hackers have targeted government agencies and companies in 16 countries.
For at least two years, Iranian hackers have been hard at work targeting government agencies and major companies in 16 countries, according to cybersecurity company Cylance.
The threat-detection firm reported that hackers within Iran have targeted airlines and airports, energy, oil and gas, telecommunications companies, government agencies, and universities.
"Iran is the new China," Cylance said in a report about the effort, which it dubbed "Operation Cleaver" after the custom software used in the cyber hacks.
The group reportedly stole highly sensitive, confidential materials and took control of networks in Canada, China, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S.
"We discovered the scope and damage of these operations during investigations of what we thought were separate cases," Cylance CEO Stuart McClure said in a statement. "Due to the choice of critical infrastructure victims and the Iranian team's quickly improving skillset, we are compelled to publish this report."
According to the company, the attackers extracted massive amounts of data, including employee information, identification photos, and airport and airline security details. They also scored PDFs of network, housing, telecom, and electricity diagrams, suggesting motives beyond financial data or intellectual property.
And while the firm did pinpoint a hack of San Diego's Navy Marine Corp Intranet, no further victims were specified. "While to date Cylance has yet to see Operation Cleaver result in loss of life or disruption of critical services, with the history of this group I see that as a likely consequence of these attacks," the company said in a blog post.
An ongoing investigation into Operation Cleaver shows the earliest evidence of hacking in June 2012, though Cylance believes the group may have started at early as 2010, and continues today.
"Such broad targeting demonstrates to the world that Iran is no longer content to retaliate against the US and Israel alone. They have bigger intentions: to position themselves to impact critical infrastructure globally," the report said.
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Iran Gets Serious About Hacking