Sunday , 5 May 2024

IRGC-Linked Hackers Targeting US Facilities Via Israeli Tech

Iranwire – US authorities have published an advisory on a cyber group said to be affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and using Israeli-made systems to attack American facilities.

Called the CyberAv3ngers, the hackers are “actively targeting and compromising Israeli-made Unitronics Vision Series programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that are are commonly used to manage operations in the water and wastewater systems sector, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) said in its advisory.

These PLCs are additionally used in industries related to manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and food and beverage.

During assaults, the “IRGC-affiliated cyber actors” project a short message on the screens saying, “You have been hacked, down with Israel. Every equipment ‘made in Israel’ is CyberAv3ngers legal target.”

CISA CyberAv3ngers have targeted “multiple” water and wastewater facilities in the United States, without giving a figure.

According to the agency, PLC devices that are commonly infiltrated are “publicly exposed to the internet” due to their remote and monitoring functionality and activated through default credentials.

CISA, along with the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Israel National Cyber Directorate, has tracked CyberAv3nger activities since October, when the hackers claimed a series of cyber assaults against Israeli PLCs on their Telegram channel.

The US government labeled the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019.

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