The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a warning today about possible cyberattacks on vulnerable U.S. networks and critical infrastructure coming from Iranian state actors following the June 21 bombings of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States.
CISA – along with the FBI and the Defense Department’s Cyber Crime Center – said in a fact sheet issued today that “Defense Industrial Base companies, particularly those possessing holdings or relationships with Israeli research and defense firms, are at increased risk.”
“At this time, we have not seen indications of a coordinated campaign of malicious cyber activity in the U.S. that can be attributed to Iran,” the three agencies said.
“However, CISA urges owners and operators of critical infrastructure organizations and other potentially targeted entities to review this fact sheet to learn more about the Iranian state-backed cyber threat and actionable mitigations to harden cyber defenses,” the agency said.
CISA pointed owners and operators to its Iran Threat Overview and Advisories webpage, and to the FBI’s The Iran Threat webpage for more details on defending against those threats.
CISA urged critical infrastructure organizations to “stay vigilant” to threats “amid potential targeting by Iranian cyber actors.”
“While there is a declared ceasefire and ongoing negotiations towards a permanent solution, Iranian-affiliated cyber actors and hacktivist groups may still conduct malicious cyber activity,” the agency said.
“We are publishing this fact sheet now because we know, historically, that both hacktivists and government-affiliated actors routinely target vulnerable U.S. networks and internet-connected devices for disruptive cyberattacks,” CISA said. “Activities like website defacements, leakage of sensitive information, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns against U.S. websites have been common attack methods in the past,” it added.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – CISA’s parent agency – issued a similar warning on June 22.