[DW] The US reportedly launched a cyberattack on Iran in response to the downing of an unmanned drone. Cybersecurity firms have also reported a rise in Iranian attempts to hack US companies and government agencies.The United States launched an offensive cyber strike against Iranian missile control systems and a spy network on Thursday amid escalating tensions between the two countries, US media reported on Saturday.
US President Donald Trump ordered US Cyber Command to launch the digital strikes, The Washington Post reported.
Citing US officials, the newspaper reported that the attack crippled Iranian computers used to control rocket and missile launches.
The cyberattack came as the president held back from conducting airstrikes on Iranian targets in response to the downing of a US Global Hawk drone. Washington said the unmanned drone was in international airspace. Tehran said it was in its airspace.
| gorb submitted an article from Ay Pee on the subject, commenting: |
| It’s ok, gorb. According to your article, we’ve been at war with them, and vice versa, for a good many years. |
40, actually The cyberattacks ‐ a contingency plan developed over weeks amid escalating tensions ‐ disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled its rocket and missile launchers, the officials said. Two of the officials said the attacks, which specifically targeted Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps computer system, were provided as options after Iranian forces blew up two oil tankers earlier this month.
The IRGC, which was designated a foreign terrorist group by the Trump administration earlier this year, is a branch of the Iranian military.
The action by U.S. Cyber Command was a demonstration of the U.S.’s increasingly mature cyber military capabilities and its more aggressive cyber strategy under the Trump administration. Over the last year U.S. officials have focused on persistently engaging with adversaries in cyberspace and undertaking more offensive operations.
There was no immediate reaction Sunday morning in Iran to the U.S. claims. Iran has hardened and disconnected much of its infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the late 2000s.