Nation State Cyberespionage: Iran and North Korea

[Faybert]

The nation state threat posed by Iran and North Korea is very real. Both have evolved into formidable adversaries for both government and industry. When confronted with the knowledge that either of these country’s intelligence apparatus has their crosshairs ranged in on a country or company, there isn’t an infosec team that doesn’t belt themselves in for a bumpy ride.

The number of entities that have been singed by the Iranians is sobering in its depth and reach. Saudi Arabia has identified Iran as the No. 1 regional threat. Saudi foreign minister Abel al-Jubeir was unambiguous at the Munich Security Conference when he stated, “Iran is the only country that has attacked us repeatedly and tried to attack us repeatedly. In fact, they tried to do it on a virtually weekly basis.” He noted the Saudis are taking steps to protect their data and train their “people in order to be able to engage in offensive operations.”
....
....

Need more evidence? Symantec identified Iranian cyber group “Chafer” as conducting cyberespionage operations against a plethora of countries’ infrastructures. Israel, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have all experienced the unwelcome touch and feel of the Iranian Chafer group. Symantec noted the group targeted “airlines, aircraft services, software and IT services companies serving the air and sea transport sectors, telecoms services, payroll services, engineering consultancies and document management software. Outside of the Middle East, Symantec has also found evidence of attacks against one African airline and attempts to compromise an international travel reservations firm.”

Then we have security firm CrowdStrike, which noted Iranian organizations were successfully engaging in cyberespionageagainst dissidents, NGO’s, think tanks and political activists. The number of companies fingering Iran for cyberespionage continues to grow.
....
....