ClearSky Cites Iranian Cyber Attacks

Iranian hackers have been targeting a range of targets in the Mideast, including Saudi Arabia and Israel, The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.

The Israeli ClearSky cybersecurity company said the attacks, which originate in Iran, are aimed at “espionage or other nation-state interests.”

About 44 percent of the targets are in Saudi Arabia, followed by Israel (14%) and Yemen (11%), including approximately 40 targets in Israel and 500 worldwide.

In Israel, among the targets have been retired generals, employees of security consulting firms and academic researchers.

“The campaign includes several different attacks with the aim of taking over the target’s computer or gain access to their email account. We estimate that this access is used for espionage or other nation-state interests,” ClearSky said.

The campaign has been going on at least since July 2014, but possibly as far back as 2011, probably either carried out by or backed by the Iranian regime.

Although there is no conclusive evidence that Iran is behind it, ClearSky cites strong grounds for suspicion: “The context of the attacks and cover stories all revolve around Iran,” their report said. “The attackers speak and write in native Iranian Persian and make mistakes characteristic of Persian speakers. In one of the hacked accounts, when retrieved, the interface language had been changed to Persian.”

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the June 15th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.