The US Department of Homeland Security has issued a total of three warnings in the last few days encouraging people to be on the alert for physical and cyber attacks from Iran. The announcements follow the US killing of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s IRGC-Quds Force. The warnings directly address IT professionals with advice on how to secure their networks against Iranian attack.
On Monday, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is an agency within the DHS, released the latest publication in its CISA Insights series, which provides background information on cybersecurity threats to the US.
Without explicitly mentioning Soleimani’s killing, it referred to “recent Iran-US tensions” creating a heightened risk of retaliatory acts against the US and its global interests. Organisations should be on the lookout for potential threats, especially if they represent strategic targets such as finance, energy, or telecommunications, it said. Iranian attackers could launch attacks targeting intellectual property or mount disinformation campaigns, it said, while also raising the spectre of physical attacks using improvised explosive devices or unmanned drones.
The publication added:
Review your organisation from an outside perspective and ask the tough questions – are you attractive to Iran and its proxies because of your business model, who your customers and competitors are, or what you stand for?
The same day, CISA also issued an alert specifically targeting IT pros that warned of a potential Iranian cyber response to the military strike. It recommended five actions that IT professionals could take to protect themselves, focusing on a mixture of vulnerability mitigation ..
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