By Franz-Stefan Gady
A recently published N.S.A. document reveals an ongoing cyber war between the United States and Iran.
This month the news website The Intercept revealed a new National Security Agency document (PDF) outlining the ongoing battle between Iran and the United States in cyberspace. The memo, dated from April 2013, was prepared for then N.S.A. director and head of U.S. Cyber Command General Keith B. Alexander and contains a number of talking points for the general’s interaction with the head of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) — the British equivalent to the American N.S.A.
Most importantly, the document outlines a cycle of escalating cyberattacks and counter-attacks, first initiated by the Israeli-American Stuxnet attack against Iranian computers:
“Iran continues to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against numerous U.S. financial institutions, and is currently in the third phase of a series of such attacks that began in August 2012. SIGINT [signals intelligence] indicates that these attacks are in retaliation to Western activities against Iran’s nuclear sector and that senior officials in the Iranian government are aware of these attacks.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat