U.S. carried out secret cyber strike on Iran after Saudi oil attack: officials(reuters.com)
reuters.com
U.S. carried out secret cyber strike on Iran after Saudi oil attack: officials
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-military-cyber-exclusive-idUSKBN1WV0EK
85 comments
For the people commenting about leakers and things being secret in the past, I’ll bet money the government leaked this themselves.
The more important problem is that we don’t even know if this attack:
1) ever occurred
2) if it did occur, was it even the US
3) if it was even an attack, was it in fact a cyberattack at all (you would want to protect actual human assets who do physical damage in say industrial control systems as an insider job by saying it was a remote attack using some sort of zero day attack)
Anonymous government sources, especially in cyber security, have a track record of persistent lying
Remember the China chip hacking story by Bloomberg built on anonymous government sources. The alleged fake news was never retracted - even though it was technically not a possible attack if you know how chips are made. (There are chips that had arguably deliberately installed flaws - the Intel chip with the OTP generator that was trivially crackable and the RSA keyfob with the default NSA backdoor).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...
https://siliconangle.com/2018/10/22/apple-amazon-super-micro...
https://www.wired.com/2013/09/rsa-advisory-nsa-algorithm/
Anonymous government sources, especially in cyber security, have a track record of persistent lying
Remember the China chip hacking story by Bloomberg built on anonymous government sources. The alleged fake news was never retracted - even though it was technically not a possible attack if you know how chips are made. (There are chips that had arguably deliberately installed flaws - the Intel chip with the OTP generator that was trivially crackable and the RSA keyfob with the default NSA backdoor).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...
https://siliconangle.com/2018/10/22/apple-amazon-super-micro...
https://www.wired.com/2013/09/rsa-advisory-nsa-algorithm/
The China chip hacking story was an invented story by Bloomberg. Everyone else denied it including Apple as the customer, US government, the supplier of the chip etc. Bloomberg fabricated the story. Ever since, I do not trust Bloomberg as a reliable source of information.
> 1) ever occurred 2) if it did occur, was it even the US 3) if it was even an attack, was it in fact a cyberattack at all
Relevant: U.S. Had Cyberattack Plan if Iran Nuclear Dispute Led to Conflict (2016) [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/world/middleeast/us-had-c...]
"Nitro Zeus was part of an effort to assure President Obama that he had alternatives, short of a full-scale war, if Iran lashed out at the United States or its allies in the region."
Tens of millions of dollars, thousands of people... That's not secrecy, just plausible deniability.
Relevant: U.S. Had Cyberattack Plan if Iran Nuclear Dispute Led to Conflict (2016) [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/world/middleeast/us-had-c...]
"Nitro Zeus was part of an effort to assure President Obama that he had alternatives, short of a full-scale war, if Iran lashed out at the United States or its allies in the region."
Tens of millions of dollars, thousands of people... That's not secrecy, just plausible deniability.
Don’t forget that “the government “ consists of many departments full of people with conflicting interests. What one part may view as useful could be viewed by another part as treason.
Yeah, that definitely happens from time to time. Here is a pretty famous case from recent history: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-24/trump-ass...
Apropos to the Noam Chomsky 'Manufacturing Consent' thread, the USG and Corporate Media have enshrined the false narrative that this was an Iranian attack. While Iran is supporting the Yemenis, independent military analysts agree that Yemen had the capabilities to carry out the attack, and it came from Yemen. Furthermore, no real evidence has been provided to tie Iran to the attack.
Also carefully glossed over is that the Saudis started a war of aggression against Yemen, one of the poorest countries on earth, fully supported by US arms and military. The claims of Iranian support for Yemen are dwarfed by the overt support of Saudi Arabia by the USG.
Also carefully glossed over is that the Saudis started a war of aggression against Yemen, one of the poorest countries on earth, fully supported by US arms and military. The claims of Iranian support for Yemen are dwarfed by the overt support of Saudi Arabia by the USG.
What's the evidence it came from Yemen? Are they claiming the images released by SA are faked? What about the claim the attacks came from the North?
So far I haven't seen any evidence from either side.
So far I haven't seen any evidence from either side.
The Houthi claimed responsibility, for starters. Also, as noted by Scott Ritter, 'there is the largest concentration of modern air defense radars in the Persian Gulf oriented toward Iran, and not one detected and tracked these launches?'
The Iran connection was immediately seized by both the USG and SA for their own purposes before the incident was even investigated. Both sides have motives that encourage fingering Iran. They promised to reveal the findings, but as of today, nothing further has been made public. This, despite the fact that the USG should have readily available sensor data that would show if the attack were to have originated in Iran, and if it were so, then that would be a causus belli for direct war on Iran, yet that dog never barked.
The Iran connection was immediately seized by both the USG and SA for their own purposes before the incident was even investigated. Both sides have motives that encourage fingering Iran. They promised to reveal the findings, but as of today, nothing further has been made public. This, despite the fact that the USG should have readily available sensor data that would show if the attack were to have originated in Iran, and if it were so, then that would be a causus belli for direct war on Iran, yet that dog never barked.
To zoom out slightly, consider the famous phrase war is politics with guns.
Would it ever be the case that war is politics with cyber strikes?
As the article points out, the strikes were politically motivated (against Iran's regime), but were they an act of war?
Under what circumstances should the American people tolerate an act of war being carried out on their "behalf"?
In my view, the democratic process should be used to prevent the US from doing "warmaking" that is not broadly supported by the public.
In fact, as it is well known, the framers required congress to declare war.
So what is the purpose of the US conducting such a strike done without democratic consent?
My guess is that it was conducted to help nudge the American people into accepting acts of war by executive fiat against Iran, when the legal justification for them is at risk of being removed via the democratic process (1). The house passed a bill requiring congressional authorization, but the senate did not.
So we can view the cyber strike as the executive branch asserting its power to make war against Iran without the sort of missiles and bombs that make Americans easily think of it as war.
1. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/19/18691936/h...
Would it ever be the case that war is politics with cyber strikes?
As the article points out, the strikes were politically motivated (against Iran's regime), but were they an act of war?
Under what circumstances should the American people tolerate an act of war being carried out on their "behalf"?
In my view, the democratic process should be used to prevent the US from doing "warmaking" that is not broadly supported by the public.
In fact, as it is well known, the framers required congress to declare war.
So what is the purpose of the US conducting such a strike done without democratic consent?
My guess is that it was conducted to help nudge the American people into accepting acts of war by executive fiat against Iran, when the legal justification for them is at risk of being removed via the democratic process (1). The house passed a bill requiring congressional authorization, but the senate did not.
So we can view the cyber strike as the executive branch asserting its power to make war against Iran without the sort of missiles and bombs that make Americans easily think of it as war.
1. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/19/18691936/h...
> war is politics with guns
Never heard that phrase before, but I wouldn't agree with it. Politics is all about compromise: the art of the possible. It's negotiation. War often happens when politicians fail to negotiate.
Never heard that phrase before, but I wouldn't agree with it. Politics is all about compromise: the art of the possible. It's negotiation. War often happens when politicians fail to negotiate.
I think the counterargument would be that politics is the orderly handling of coercive force and authority.
When this orderly approach isn't sufficient, additional coercive force is added to the mix. At some point it starts to look like war.
To people on the wrong side of the political hierarchy, every day looks like war as armed troops (police) occupy neighborhoods seeking to enforce an externally imposed code that criminalizes normal, consensual behavior, confiscates wealth and property, and destroys civil society.
> when politicians fail to negotiate
In a sense, yes. If one politician demands that a foreign leader step down or face a US invasion, one can interpret the foreign leader's failure to step down as a breakdown in negotiations, but I think that is quite a stretch.
When this orderly approach isn't sufficient, additional coercive force is added to the mix. At some point it starts to look like war.
To people on the wrong side of the political hierarchy, every day looks like war as armed troops (police) occupy neighborhoods seeking to enforce an externally imposed code that criminalizes normal, consensual behavior, confiscates wealth and property, and destroys civil society.
> when politicians fail to negotiate
In a sense, yes. If one politician demands that a foreign leader step down or face a US invasion, one can interpret the foreign leader's failure to step down as a breakdown in negotiations, but I think that is quite a stretch.
There's "War is the continuation of Diplomacy by other means." - Carl von Clausewitz (Military theorist)
>> In my view, the democratic process should be used to prevent the US from doing "warmaking" that is not broadly supported by the public.
I would agree with you on principle. In practice, I'm not sure that the general public is capable of really understanding or digesting the concepts of cyber-warfare. At least, not in a way that would lend itself well to the democratic process. Unfortunately.
I would agree with you on principle. In practice, I'm not sure that the general public is capable of really understanding or digesting the concepts of cyber-warfare. At least, not in a way that would lend itself well to the democratic process. Unfortunately.
We don't take away from the democratic process that which is hard to understand.
Your concern has been raised by politicians for hundreds of years.
All it would take (in the US) for the the representative congress to pass a new law which makes foreign cyber interference only permissible when passed by the the house and senate, similar to declarations of war.
Your concern has been raised by politicians for hundreds of years.
All it would take (in the US) for the the representative congress to pass a new law which makes foreign cyber interference only permissible when passed by the the house and senate, similar to declarations of war.
Was there any measurable effect? I'm not convinced anything was accomplished here.
The fact is, it's all complicated... Since (and before) stuxnet, cyber warfare has escalated and the number of (presumed) state actors is present pretty much everywhere. The attacks are constant and don't stop. Anyone doing cyber security in an international or government system experiences this daily.
Is it me or does it feel hypocritical of the US government when it constantly cry about cyber operation from China and Russia while conducting (probably a lot more than this certain case) and leaking cyber operation of US?
Like, if everyone including yourself is knee deep and slinging mud, don't accuse other people for being dirty.
Like, if everyone including yourself is knee deep and slinging mud, don't accuse other people for being dirty.
Of course governments seem hypocritical.
Until you realise that every large entity, be it governmental or private, practices realpolitik quite consistently.
Until you realise that every large entity, be it governmental or private, practices realpolitik quite consistently.
Responding to a missile attack by screwing with the attacker's missile targeting systems is not really comparable to attacking an election to put one of your cronies at the top of another country's government.
You should really, really learn about the history of US involvement in the Iranian government before you state that. Like how we helped overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister in 1953, to ensure we put in place a guy who was friendly to Great Brittan and the US. (Operation AJAX)
Can almost trace a line from that to the 1979 embassy hostage crisis, and the problems we have with Iran today.
Can almost trace a line from that to the 1979 embassy hostage crisis, and the problems we have with Iran today.
Why do you think the CIA kept Operation Ajax a secret from the American public until 1992?
“Put one of your cronies at the top of another country’s government”
Do you mean US meddling in Iran in 1953 or the other way around today?
Do you mean US meddling in Iran in 1953 or the other way around today?
Why do you think the CIA kept Operation Ajax a secret from the American public until 1992?
;)
It wasn’t until 2017 that Britain released documents on their part in Operation Boot.
It wasn’t until 2017 that Britain released documents on their part in Operation Boot.
And you think they kept it secret just for fun?
You think that if the American and British publics were told in 1953 "We're gonna go overthrow another country's government and install a brutal dictatorship because their democratic government is threatening BP's profit margins", the public would've given them a thumbs up?
You think that if the American and British publics were told in 1953 "We're gonna go overthrow another country's government and install a brutal dictatorship because their democratic government is threatening BP's profit margins", the public would've given them a thumbs up?
Oh no. No fun intended.
I just wasn’t able to get what OP meant without that clarification.
I just wasn’t able to get what OP meant without that clarification.
In the framework outlined by Micheal Hayden in his blackhat keynote, offensive attacks like disabling missile batteries or power grids are acts of war, but espionage and intelligence gathering are on the table as what nation states just sort of do when idle.
Does Micheal Hayden consider firing missiles at another country an act of war?
Which country fired missiles at us again?
The cyber attack was a response to an Iranian missile attack on Saudi oil production facilities, in which 19 missiles struck the facility, injuring an unknown number of the 200 people who were present.
I'm not saying that the US should be stanning Saudi Arabia, but it seems inappropriate to hem and haw about what is and isn't an "act of war" when actual literal missiles blew up actual literal people.
I'm not saying that the US should be stanning Saudi Arabia, but it seems inappropriate to hem and haw about what is and isn't an "act of war" when actual literal missiles blew up actual literal people.
Missiles not shot at us, not proven to have been from Iran, in a conflict we're not part of.
And the issue is that cyber attacks _are_ real attacks. Power outages like you've seen in Egypt and Venezuela kill people. These cyber attacks destroyed missiles. The stuxnet attack did 10s to 100s of millions of dollars to a uranium production facility. To pretend that flipping a switch to launch a missile and and flipping a switch to launch a virus to destroy the same target is somehow different is a false dichotomy, and contrary to published US policy.
And the issue is that cyber attacks _are_ real attacks. Power outages like you've seen in Egypt and Venezuela kill people. These cyber attacks destroyed missiles. The stuxnet attack did 10s to 100s of millions of dollars to a uranium production facility. To pretend that flipping a switch to launch a missile and and flipping a switch to launch a virus to destroy the same target is somehow different is a false dichotomy, and contrary to published US policy.
Banks, heavy industry, big pharma are literally buying candidates for the government. Yet russia using trolls and leaking some emails is the biggest problem with elections... sounds like correct priorities.
At least banks and industry are in the country that they are trying to control. I don't know how to tell you that secret outside influence is more harmful than honest (if disproportionate) inside influence.
Corporations hold no allegiance to any flag (well unless chinese :) ) they only serve their own interest.
'The secret outside influence' on usa is negligible scarecrow used to put fear in people, so they pay attention to scary putin instead of focusing on who really runs the country. Honestly how much influance do you think russia had on last election?
'The secret outside influence' on usa is negligible scarecrow used to put fear in people, so they pay attention to scary putin instead of focusing on who really runs the country. Honestly how much influance do you think russia had on last election?
The interest of an American corporation is definitionally beneficial to at least some Americans, namely themselves.
The interest of a Russian dictator is untied to the interests of any Americans.
As for how much influence Russia had, read the Mueller report. Volume One is full of examples.
Corporate influence is bad, sure, but corporations have nowhere near the amount of resources to bear on influence operations as states have. Avengers: Endgame, the most expensive movie ever made, cost about as much as one F35 fighter jet, of which the USAF has purchased 1,783 units. When a state decides to use popular media for public influence, they can wield multiple orders of magnitude more influence than any of the world's great media monopolies can.
The interest of a Russian dictator is untied to the interests of any Americans.
As for how much influence Russia had, read the Mueller report. Volume One is full of examples.
Corporate influence is bad, sure, but corporations have nowhere near the amount of resources to bear on influence operations as states have. Avengers: Endgame, the most expensive movie ever made, cost about as much as one F35 fighter jet, of which the USAF has purchased 1,783 units. When a state decides to use popular media for public influence, they can wield multiple orders of magnitude more influence than any of the world's great media monopolies can.
We are talking about Multinational Mega corps that hide most of the money outside of US. They are an entities with a flag sticker attached to forehead.
>The interest of an American corporation is definitionally beneficial to at least some Americans
Benefit of few at cost of majority of the nation, thats good???
>The interest of a Russian dictator is untied to the interests of any Americans. It is as you say "beneficial to at least some Americans".
>corporations have nowhere near the amount of resources to bear on influence operations as states have.
And that's why they pay even lower corporate taxes now, the biggest players skip paying taxes altogether through loophole that somehow no one wants to ever fix. Its common knowledge that Apples, Googles, Facebooks and other Amazons pay laughable amounts. And with tax breaks and incentives the are getting more money then they pay[1] in its nature its beyond grotesque.
Lockheed martin selling jets to Saudis so they can claim a new better jets need to be developed. Directly working against interest of the state so they can milk the middle case even more. That is literally selling arms to both sides so neither will win so you can stuff your pockets with blood money indefinitely.
Correct me if I am wrong but it seems that what you are saying is that state is this big monolithic structure that holds vast amounts of power. It has power over corporation as it can pass laws, and it controls the biggest army in the world. True, but in reality all of it controlled through 'handful' of politicians elected via popularity contest ergo if you have enough money you will buy yourself a ticket in. And who provides the money? Interest groups, lobbyists via more or less opaque means (superPACs or dark money pools).
So you can claim that the puppet is the biggest and strongest but its on strings and groups that holds those strings are in control. And no matter what puppet will dance as its told to no matter what.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big...
>The interest of an American corporation is definitionally beneficial to at least some Americans
Benefit of few at cost of majority of the nation, thats good???
>The interest of a Russian dictator is untied to the interests of any Americans. It is as you say "beneficial to at least some Americans".
>corporations have nowhere near the amount of resources to bear on influence operations as states have.
And that's why they pay even lower corporate taxes now, the biggest players skip paying taxes altogether through loophole that somehow no one wants to ever fix. Its common knowledge that Apples, Googles, Facebooks and other Amazons pay laughable amounts. And with tax breaks and incentives the are getting more money then they pay[1] in its nature its beyond grotesque.
Lockheed martin selling jets to Saudis so they can claim a new better jets need to be developed. Directly working against interest of the state so they can milk the middle case even more. That is literally selling arms to both sides so neither will win so you can stuff your pockets with blood money indefinitely.
Correct me if I am wrong but it seems that what you are saying is that state is this big monolithic structure that holds vast amounts of power. It has power over corporation as it can pass laws, and it controls the biggest army in the world. True, but in reality all of it controlled through 'handful' of politicians elected via popularity contest ergo if you have enough money you will buy yourself a ticket in. And who provides the money? Interest groups, lobbyists via more or less opaque means (superPACs or dark money pools).
So you can claim that the puppet is the biggest and strongest but its on strings and groups that holds those strings are in control. And no matter what puppet will dance as its told to no matter what.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big...
We are by no means "knee deep" the way the Chinese are. The US isn't maintaining a constant and widespread campaign of industrial espionage and then feeding what they find to our own companies' R&D teams the way China is. If it were merely 'spies spying on spies', we wouldn't be hearing about it. As it is, very little actually gets attributed to China, and instead news agencies seem to pick the safe targets of North Korea and Russia
The crying about Russia has become party politics. There's no putting that cat back in the bag
The crying about Russia has become party politics. There's no putting that cat back in the bag
> The US isn't maintaining a constant and widespread campaign of industrial espionage and then feeding what they find to our own companies' R&D teams the way China is.
This is a rather naive notion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
This is a rather naive notion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
Russia at least was conducting a disinformation and agitprop attack during the 2016 election. That's not "hacking", exactly, but it's still something that matters quite a bit.
Yeah, that's propaganda only show the citizens one half of the coin.
There's still no doubt in my mind that the US was the one that bombed their refineries.
There's still no doubt in my mind that the US was the one that bombed their refineries.
Do you mean the Saudi refineries?
It really would be nice if we were all honest with each other. Unfortunately it takes one bad actor to exploit everyone else, so instead we're always needing to watch our backs and poke others.
Depends on if it’s reactionary or provocative.
I would treat any cyberattacks damaging infrastructure as acts of war.
Question is, in Iran, is it a part of pre-existing war?
Question is, in Iran, is it a part of pre-existing war?
I could swear there was speculation about precisely this just after the strikes. Anyone remember it?
Much better than the ill-advised military strike that so many foreign policy demons were lusting for.
It bothers me a lot that so many foreign policy experts can look at the unrelieved mess of things that they have made over the past generation, and think that this time, doing what has failed spectacularly so many times before is going to work out.
Time to invent some new wheels.
It bothers me a lot that so many foreign policy experts can look at the unrelieved mess of things that they have made over the past generation, and think that this time, doing what has failed spectacularly so many times before is going to work out.
Time to invent some new wheels.
Micheal Hayden said during his Blackhat keynote that the US considers offensive cyber attacks from nation states to be acts of war, so probably not that much better.
They say that, but the if the reports of state-sponsored cyber attacks on the US or US companies over the past 10+ years is any indication, the "war" that's mentioned in the "acts of war" statement isn't tanks rolling through Beijing, Tehran, or Moscow.
If a cyber attack leads to war, it seems to lead to cyber war like this article. Not physical war.
If a cyber attack leads to war, it seems to lead to cyber war like this article. Not physical war.
He made it pretty clear that it was a real, dropping bombs, boots on the ground, cause for war.
I think it's more that the US applies these rules unequally. You execute a cyber attack on us, we'll overthrow your government and laugh as the rabble beheads you in the streets. If we execute a cyber attack on you, what are you going to do? We have nukes.
The framework he laid out is actually pretty interesting because it made it very clear that espionage is totally on the table, which is as far as the countries that do have nukes are willing to go here.
I think it's more that the US applies these rules unequally. You execute a cyber attack on us, we'll overthrow your government and laugh as the rabble beheads you in the streets. If we execute a cyber attack on you, what are you going to do? We have nukes.
The framework he laid out is actually pretty interesting because it made it very clear that espionage is totally on the table, which is as far as the countries that do have nukes are willing to go here.
Again, that may be what they said but it doesn't match reality. We've been attacked, the DNI named names, and there are no tanks rolling through Moscow, Tehran, or Beijing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/china-russia-could-disrupt-u...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/china-russia-could-disrupt-u...
That doesn't say that we've been attacked by China or Russia, only that they have the ability to.
The Iranian and North Korean "attacks" here are just laundered transfers on the swift network.
The Iranian and North Korean "attacks" here are just laundered transfers on the swift network.
This "anonymous source" who is disclosing classified information should be punished. This is not good for anyone.
It isn't always that simple. The government sometimes discloses such information intentionally with an agreement that the briefer's name is not disclosed.
This is half the newspaper nowadays. Every journalist just repeats what some official with an impressive job title says and nobody gets to question why the story is being pushed by this person because they are never identified. It's naive to call for prosecution, this story was almost surely leaked and approved by the US State Department before it was written.
Journalists should really dig their heels in and start resisting this, but that will never happen. It's just bad journalism and they keep letting themselves get manipulated.
I don't even care about the classified information aspect of this, the classification system in the US is a complete farce and will be reformed soon, clearly nobody respects it all anymore at any level of the intel community.
Journalists should really dig their heels in and start resisting this, but that will never happen. It's just bad journalism and they keep letting themselves get manipulated.
I don't even care about the classified information aspect of this, the classification system in the US is a complete farce and will be reformed soon, clearly nobody respects it all anymore at any level of the intel community.
Journalists without a long history of connections and experience, typically facilitated by the name/history of the "paper" they're working for, don't get to dig their heels in because they would lose access. Access is paramount, as is on record/off record confidentiality, and they are dependent on it, else they be blacklisted by their subjects of interest. All interviews and information sharing is voluntary, they can't force someone to answer a question, and they can't force someone to be interviewed, and they definitely can't force someone to tell the truth.
It is not their fault that they parrot whatever talking points politicians and their staff members. It's only on those rare occasions where sources are cultivated through long periods of time and building trust through publishing meticulously what information has been shared with them via interviews and documents, most of them being talking points of course, that they can get to the meat of the subjects. Lifting the veil of the real news stories requires years and years of trudging through just simply formatting interview transcripts into something readable and of interest.
I don't blame them one bit. It's a tough job and you're at the mercy of everyone you attempt to gather information from. It doesn't help that you're viewed as de-facto suspicious due to journalistic freedoms.
It is not their fault that they parrot whatever talking points politicians and their staff members. It's only on those rare occasions where sources are cultivated through long periods of time and building trust through publishing meticulously what information has been shared with them via interviews and documents, most of them being talking points of course, that they can get to the meat of the subjects. Lifting the veil of the real news stories requires years and years of trudging through just simply formatting interview transcripts into something readable and of interest.
I don't blame them one bit. It's a tough job and you're at the mercy of everyone you attempt to gather information from. It doesn't help that you're viewed as de-facto suspicious due to journalistic freedoms.
>This is not good for anyone.
Except those who don't support such a strike (e.g Iran).
Except those who don't support such a strike (e.g Iran).
wpdev_63(2)
And it was kept secret until now? So I guess they haven't told trump about it?
Given their absurdly similar phrasings, I'm pretty certain both of the responses you got from this were bots. Or else two idiots with their own version of a copy pasta.
Used to be that "secret" things stayed secret for 30 years or so.
Probably want Iran to not assume it's coming from Israel/Saudi etc...but then again these days people are crazy addicted to getting those like/click/view counts and I wouldn't be the least surprised if the Intel/Military community isn't immune. Can see two Generals competing for Likes somewhere.
"Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?"
There's not much anyone not in the know can say. We know Cyber Command and the NSA work together to penetrate adversarial networks. They are also very reluctant to share anything about their activities. They apparently wiped out the Iranian computers that were used to target the drone they shot down in the summer. We don't know how deep Cyber Command has embedded itself in the Iranian government's digital infrastructure. They have probably gone very, very far.
Not likely at all. The Iranian defence structure is highly decentralized.
That does not follow. "Decentralized" is not a defense against "penetrated by the NSA". It just means that it's more work - one attack doesn't give you the keys to everything.
On the other side, from the Iranian perspective, it means that systems are secured by different people from different organizations with different degrees of training. That's a recipe for a number of attackable systems.
On the other side, from the Iranian perspective, it means that systems are secured by different people from different organizations with different degrees of training. That's a recipe for a number of attackable systems.
It means they are off the grid and are trained to act independently of the central command.
I'm pretty sure that there are exactly zero units of the Iranian military that have independent authority to, for example, start shooting missiles at US Navy warships. They may be able to act independently once they understand that it's time to open fire. But to decide to start... that's a central command decision.
But they will start shooting when they learn that a conflict has started. You know, if a US attack in the strait begins it will become obvious pretty pretty soon. Also they don't need a sophisticated link from the top to start an attack, just a simple command.
Doesn't matter. Cyber Command has a contingency plan, called Nitro Zeus, using cyber and other methods, to shut down the entire country of Iran. It's a full-scale attack in waiting.
When Nakasone and Cyber Command looked at what their digital weapons could contribute to the battle plan, they focused on the Iranian targets that they could reach by boring into the country's networks: Iran's air defense, its communications systems, and its power grid. Nitro Zeus would be the opening act of the war plan: turning off an entire country so fast that retaliation would have been extremely difficult. It was also, in the minds of some of its creators, a glimpse of the future. The idea was to plunge the target country into blackness and confusion from the very beginning of a conflict. That would give Israel and the United States time to bomb the many suspected nuclear sites, take pictures of how much damage was done, and if necessary bomb them again. But the hope was that Nitro Zeus would avert an all-out war, because the Iranians would, in theory, not be able to strike back. As part of the plan, Iran's missile capability would also have been targeted.
So, even as President Obama was worried about the vulnerability of America's electric grid, the United States was tunneling inside Iran's grid - along with its cell-phone network and even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' command-and-control systems.
"This was pretty mind blowing to me," one former official said. "Here we were, going to work every day behind sealed doors, essentially trying to figure out if it was possible to cripple an entire nation's infrastructure without ever firing a shot or dropping a bomb. So we littered Iran's networks with malware," he said, a reference to the process of placing implants in key strategic systems that could, later on, be used to inject destructive code or simply turn the networks off.
"The hard part was keeping track of all of it," he said. Keeping track was tricky business because networks always change - and because there was no way to test Iran's vulnerabilities in field conditions. So Nakasone and the thousands of people at work on Nitro Zeus resorted to tabletop exercises, simulations of an attack. They tested and retested on a virtual model of Iran's networks to make sure that the implants were not visible to the Iranians and that collateral damage was limited. And they created answers from scratch to a series of questions: How do you take down the grid and keep it down? How about the air defenses? If the Iranians try to retaliate, how do you make sure they never get off the ground? "This was an enormous, and enormously complex, program," the former official said. "Before it was developed, the US had never assembled a combined cyber and kinetic attack plan on this scale."
Source: David E. Sanger, "The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age", Crown, NY, 2018, pp.39-44
When Nakasone and Cyber Command looked at what their digital weapons could contribute to the battle plan, they focused on the Iranian targets that they could reach by boring into the country's networks: Iran's air defense, its communications systems, and its power grid. Nitro Zeus would be the opening act of the war plan: turning off an entire country so fast that retaliation would have been extremely difficult. It was also, in the minds of some of its creators, a glimpse of the future. The idea was to plunge the target country into blackness and confusion from the very beginning of a conflict. That would give Israel and the United States time to bomb the many suspected nuclear sites, take pictures of how much damage was done, and if necessary bomb them again. But the hope was that Nitro Zeus would avert an all-out war, because the Iranians would, in theory, not be able to strike back. As part of the plan, Iran's missile capability would also have been targeted.
So, even as President Obama was worried about the vulnerability of America's electric grid, the United States was tunneling inside Iran's grid - along with its cell-phone network and even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' command-and-control systems.
"This was pretty mind blowing to me," one former official said. "Here we were, going to work every day behind sealed doors, essentially trying to figure out if it was possible to cripple an entire nation's infrastructure without ever firing a shot or dropping a bomb. So we littered Iran's networks with malware," he said, a reference to the process of placing implants in key strategic systems that could, later on, be used to inject destructive code or simply turn the networks off.
"The hard part was keeping track of all of it," he said. Keeping track was tricky business because networks always change - and because there was no way to test Iran's vulnerabilities in field conditions. So Nakasone and the thousands of people at work on Nitro Zeus resorted to tabletop exercises, simulations of an attack. They tested and retested on a virtual model of Iran's networks to make sure that the implants were not visible to the Iranians and that collateral damage was limited. And they created answers from scratch to a series of questions: How do you take down the grid and keep it down? How about the air defenses? If the Iranians try to retaliate, how do you make sure they never get off the ground? "This was an enormous, and enormously complex, program," the former official said. "Before it was developed, the US had never assembled a combined cyber and kinetic attack plan on this scale."
Source: David E. Sanger, "The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age", Crown, NY, 2018, pp.39-44
Your quotes quotes sound impressive but I wouldn't take them at face value and think that the Iranians are unaware of and unprepared to face these threats.
You may want to read articles by this guy for an alternative view on Iran's capabilities.
https://oilprice.com/contributors/Yossef-Bodansky
as a sidenote, some people even believed the US claims that their air defence systems are the best in the world, until a few days ago.
You may want to read articles by this guy for an alternative view on Iran's capabilities.
https://oilprice.com/contributors/Yossef-Bodansky
as a sidenote, some people even believed the US claims that their air defence systems are the best in the world, until a few days ago.