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Iran’s ‘cyber attacks’ against US can cause damage, experts warn

Al-Arabia – As the United States completes its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, security analysts warn of more frequent and dangerous cyber attacks from Iran.

The president of the Global Situation Room, Inc. and the former White House director of Global Engagement, Brett Bruen warned that: “We are very likely to see Tehran in the coming days and weeks target American interests.”

He added that: “The most vulnerable and important objective for them are American businesses. They see effecting some economic impact as retribution.”

The United States fully re-imposed sanctions on Iran on November 5.

For their part, a recent report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) said that: “The desperate regime may become a more aggressive actor both in the virtual and physical world … its hackers can still do serious damage,” according to a report on Fox news.

Analysts also said Iran’s capabilities are evolving and focusing more on using social media to spread false information and skew public opinion.

Bruen said that: “Some of those efforts were identified and taken down by social media companies. Many have not been detected or removed. The most damaging, as we saw with Russia, is when a country can penetrate networks and then weaponize that information.”

In August, US intelligence experts warned that the United States is preparing to brace itself against cyber attacks which Iran might launch in response to the restoring of US sanctions in early November.

While the Iranians showed more defiance with the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling in late October for the stepping up of efforts to fight enemy “infiltration” in a speech to officials in charge of cyber defense, state television reported.

“In the face of the enemy’s complex practices, our civil defense should … confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date … action,” Ayatollah Khamenei told civil defense officials, who are in charge of areas including cyber defense.

Last Update: Thursday, 22 November 2018 KSA 09:57 – GMT 06:57

 

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