A cyberwar broke out between Israel and Iran, beginning April 2020. It is now threatening to affect the lives of civilians in these two countries, besides in the US and other nations. Before the situation gets out of hand, let’s see how it can be mitigated and brought under control.
How
cyberwars began affecting civilian lives
It all
began in April 2020 when an Israeli water pumping station’s systems were
compromised as a result of a cyberattack, leading to the breakdown of
individual pumps. The source of this attack was traced to Iran. In what was
said to be an act of retaliation, weeks after this incident, Israel-based
hackers attacked a port in Iran, giving rise to the first-ever state-sponsored cyber war, wired.com quotes Lotem
Finkelstein, a director of Check Point, an Israeli cybersecurity company, as saying.
This
was the flashpoint for a new trend of cyber warfare where infrastructure was
targeted, disrupting the daily lives of millions of people in these two Middle
Eastern nations. It intensified further this year when a team of hackers,
belonging to Black Shadow, allegedly backed by Iran, made public intimate
details of around a million users of the widely used Israeli LGBTQ app, Atraf,
according to France24.com. Meanwhile, on October 26, 201, Iran’s 4,300 gas
stations were affected due to a reported cyberattack. The Asian nation blamed
the US and Israel for this violation.
Earlier,
on July 9 and 10, 2021, cybercriminals
reportedly interrupted Iranian train services by posting bogus delay
announcements on digital billboards that read “Long delays due to cyber
attacks. More information: 64411.” The phone number is said to be of the office
of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader.
The hack attacks targeted Iranian infrastructure across the
board, taking into consideration the targets. They reportedly were carried out
by actors, with the apparent backing of certain nations, as well as by
nonaligned and loose cyber attacking units. The intent has, however, been
unequivocally the same, causing turmoil and disorder that adversely impacted
the ordinary citizens and business houses in this dysfunctional and autocratic
Islamic nation.
Hack
attacks affect the US and Australia
On the
other hand, the United States has also been bearing the brunt of cyberattacks.
It warned Iran for attempting to hack the computers of the world’s richest
nation’s crucial infrastructure networks, including hospitals and voter
registration systems.
Stating
that diplomacy has been better between nations in the Middle East, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, a visiting fellow at the
European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, is of the view
that different nations are showcasing their capabilities in an attempt to create a new kind of power balance in this
region.
But Iranian cybercriminals are said to be involved in
nefarious activities in various Western nations. The IT security officials of
the US, the UK, and Australia, on November 17, stated that state-backed hackers
have upped their activities against healthcare and transport organizations in
the US and Australia since March 2021.
What measures should the governments take to protect
their cyberspaces?
Before things spiral out of control for all the people
who are at the risk of getting affected, it is incumbent that Western
countries, like the US and the UK, should act sagaciously and save the world
from further misery. They should have in place regulations by engaging
with non-state actors and taking forward with all earnest diplomatic
proposals with Iran.
The
need of the hour for the governments is to equip themselves with strong
cybersecurity defense systems so that they can continue to deliver essential
services to their citizens round-the-clock seamlessly. These mechanisms will
ensure that cybercriminals, wherever they are operating from, are given no iota
of a chance to target technology that supports the delivery of such services.
They could begin by deploying penetration testing services, armed with
the advanced tools and technologies, that circumvent the security of the
corporate networks having state-of-the-art security controls. These should be
in line with industry standards and must be able to comply with several
regulatory requirements including PCI DSS 11.3. Penetration testing of such
types will be then in a position to detect threats, which hold certain IT
systems and applications to ransom, that allow hackers to access confidential
information.
