All these days Russia, North Korea, and China were considered as top cyberspace adversaries of the United States. But now, the apex position is being replaced by Iran which has launched a new Cyber Warfare program. The aim of the program is to encourage hackers to launch cyber attacks on enemy nations.
As per the sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders, the program is being funded by the government to recruit hackers into cyberspace and launch cyber attacks on the critical infrastructure of developed nations such as the United States.
It is said that Iran is also taking the support of Mexico to strengthen its cyber warfare initiative. But it’s still unclear whether the latter has obliged the requests of the former.
Going back into history, in mid-2000’s Iran started a cyber army with the name Iran Hackers Sabotage Group which was offering services such as defacing websites. It also succeeded in defacing the US Naval station Guantanamo homepage with some hate messages against American leaders and defending a particular religion backed supporters.
The then US President took immediate action to ban the group from the internet and succeeded on a partial note.
Then in early 2008, a new group called Ashiyane Digital Security Team emerged out. It basically offered free hacking tools and tutorials to interested geeks and was asking them to launch a cyber attack in favor of its classes.
By the year 2009, the above said group managed to deface 500 websites which include 1000 from US, UK, and France for opposing Israeli incursion into Gaza.
Then in the year 2009, Iranian Cyber Army launched a cyber attack on Twitter to prove its existence in cyberspace. It later managed to create a lot of buzz by hacking several websites including Voice of America in 2011.
Now, Iranian Cyber Army has re-emerged with a new objective and that is to put down nations such as US and UK on the digital front. The group already has 2,400 professionals certified hackers who also command Iran’s Voluntary Paramilitary Militia, known as the Basij Resistance Force.
Since, 2016, the group is known to conduct active attacks on banks causing tens of millions of dollars in losses.
US Intelligence suspects that the group is getting cyber warfare assistance from Russia and in near future, it is expecting full support from Mexico.
Already, according to a documentary aired on the Univision Television Network in 2011, a former Iranian Ambassador to Mexico accepted the plan from undercover students of a Mexican Institute to launch serious cyber attacks against US and rest of the west.
Recently, the program was aired on History channel with an update that the army will now target the White House, the CIA and the FBI and nuclear installations.
Technically speaking, Iran has less army strength in all variants to oppose the US. But it is in a view that its cyber warfare programs will help it overcome the disadvantage compared to the US and is in a hope that its foreign allies will help it to emerge out as a winner in future.
