iran

Israel A Leader in Cyberwarfare

by Andy Brudtkuhl on July 8, 2009

With eyes on Iran, Israel has been planning for the inevitable for the last decade – a cyber onslaught on its sworn enemy Iran.

Last year an Israeli spy was executed in Iran for importing “tainted” communications equipment for one of Iran’s secret military projects. This equipment was likely equipped with malware created by Israeli cyberspies to allow them to take control of the hardware should they need to.

Iranian media quoted a security official as saying that Ashtari’s actions “led to the defeat of the project with irreversible damage.” Israel declined all comment on the case. >via Reuters

In 2007 Israel instituted a air based bombing raid on a suspected atomic reactor in Syria. The attack was preceeded by a cyber attack that rendered Syrian’s ground radar and anti-aircraft systems useless.

According to the book “State Of War” by NYTimes reported James Risen – the CIA and the Israeli Mossad had plans to use electromagnetic-pulse devices to fry power lines heading to nuclear power facilities in Iran.

Via a recent Reuters report

Asked to speculate about how Israel might target Iran, Borg said malware — a commonly used abbreviation for “malicious software” — could be inserted to corrupt, commandeer or crash the controls of sensitive sites like uranium enrichment plants.

Such attacks could be immediate, he said. Or they might be latent, with the malware loitering unseen and awaiting an external trigger, or pre-set to strike automatically when the infected facility reaches a more critical level of activity.

{ 0 comments }

The Cyber War in Iran

by Andy Brudtkuhl on June 17, 2009

This is one of the most advanced cyber battles I’ve seen and what is even more important is the involvement of citizens using social media to enter the trenches of this web based cyber war. Sides have been taken as protesters from around the world have collaborated and planned attacks, rallies, and protests via social media, especially Twitter.

via Wired – “Web Attacks Expand in Iran’s Cyber Battle“…

“We turned our collective power and outrage into a serious weapon that we could use at our will, without ever having to feel the consequences. We practiced distributed, citizen-based warfare,” writes Matthew Burton, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who joined in the online assaults, thanks to a “push-button tool that would, upon your click, immediately start bombarding 10 Web sites with requests.”

Distributed citizen based warfare… And I thought citizen journalism was cool – this definitely trumps that on a scale we’ve not seen before. Social Networks have provided millions of interconnected networks of people to band together and organize mass protests and attacks in an unprecedented manner.

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }