Cyber Attack On U.S. Assets During Shutdown
As the US government’s shutdown was underway, hackers were having a “field trip or a joy ride” to try to take advantage of the situation by launching cyber attack.
The shutdown over President Donald Trump’s $5.6bn budget request for a border wall with Mexico has become the longest in US history.
Without a passing budget, many government employees have been left unpaid and told not to come into work. It also means critical IT systems might have been left vulnerable.
A DNS-hijacking cyber attack has been launched on the US which experts believes originated from Iran.
DNS hijacking reroutes internet traffic to a place where it can be easily manipulated and monitored for malicious activities.
Chris Krebs, Director of the US Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued “an emergency directive to US civilian agencies requiring immediate actions to protect federal information systems from ongoing DNS hijacking and tampering activities”
It is now adding another layer of tensions between the US and Iran with escalation from the past few months. President Trump claims Iran has been continuing its nuclear program in contradiction of a deal reach in 2015, leading the US to pull out last May and reimposed stiffer sanctions on the nation.
A report from the ICG argues that Iran is still complying with the deal even though Trump abandoned it. Iran’s compliance has been proven by inspectors claim.
The Trump administration is aiming at a possible change of regime in regards of Tehran.
The reports author’s claim the US wants to “bring Iran to its knees” economically, but Iran stated they can stay at flow until 2021, but if Trump is re-elected in November next year than sanctions are most likely to continue, this could cripple Iran.
It could be a disastrous event, it could at the last resort for Iran to escalate it nuclear program for leverage against the US.
In the meantime, the US are still protecting their infrastructures from hackers even if the world thinks they can try conquering it. They might be surprised they still will not be able to put a dent into the Armor.