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State and Local Governments Face Iranian Hacking Threats

On the first Monday of 2020, CNBC reported that “city governments, agencies and companies from coast to coast are on high alert for ramped up cyber activity possibly emanating from Iran. …”

And that was just the start of a week full of dramatic announcements related to international relations and cyberthreats emanating from all over the Middle East, and specifically Iran, against U.S. public- and private-sector targets.

Here’s a quick roundup after the fast-moving global hacking situation, which threatens to impact state and local governments and U.S. critical infrastructure:

CNN Business: Hacking attempts originating in Iran nearly triple following Soleimani strike, researchers say — Excerpt: “Soon after the strike that killed Soleimani, Iran-based attempts to hack federal, state and local government websites jumped 50% — and then continued to accelerate, said network security company Cloudflare.

Over the course of 48 hours, attacks traced to Iranian IP addresses nearly tripled against targets around the world, Cloudflare said, peaking at half a billion attempts per day. …                                                                              

Texas officials said Tuesday that the state’s computer systems were being scanned as often as 10,000 times per minute. “We absolutely saw an increase in activity that needed to be blocked from Iran,” said Amanda Crawford, executive director of the Texas Department of Information Resources, in an interview with CNN.

Separately, websites belonging to the Texas Department of Agriculture and an Alabama veterans’ group were defaced this week with an image of Soleimani. The image was accompanied by a message: “Hacked by Iranian hacker. …”

ZDNet: These hacking groups are eyeing power grids, says security company — Excerpt: “At least three hacking groups have the capability to interfere with or disrupt power grids across the US — and the number of cyber-criminal operations targeting electricity and other utilities is on the rise, according (Read more...)