Iranian Hackers | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. have admitted they believe a series of cyber attacks on domestic banks and some foreign oil companies carried out over the last year are the handy work of a group of hackers linked to the Iranian government. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the cyberthreat from Iran has grown, and declared that the Pentagon is prepared to take action if America is threatened by a computer-based assault. The hackers are apparently part of a group of less than 100 computer security specialists from Iranian universities and network security firms, according to an unnamed US government official. American officials have said they are able to discover the source of the recent cyberattacks. We do welcome this and announce our readiness for any international cooperation to find the source of the attacks. The Iranian official said Tehran has already offered help to boost the companies cybersecurity, as Iran has itself recently been the victim of cyberattacks on its offshore oil platforms. The c

IRAN state official has said that Cyber attackers have targeted Iranian infrastructure and communications companies, disrupting the Internet across the country. " Yesterday we had a heavy attack against the country's infrastructure and communications companies which has forced us to limit the Internet ," Iran the world's no. 5 oil exporter, has tightened cyber security since its uranium enrichment centrifuges were hit in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which Tehran believes was planted by arch-adversaries Israel or the United States. Last week, the Islamic republic cut citizens' access to Gmail and the secure version of Google Search. Gmail has since been restored. Since sites such as Youtube and Facebook were used to organise mass anti-government protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 2009, the Iranian government has maintained one of the world's largest internet filters, blocking access to thousands of sites and IP address

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

According to reports, some of the United States biggest financial institutions  including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Bancorp were hit by a series of cyber attacks last week, by a group claiming Middle Eastern ties, that caused Internet blackouts and delays in online banking. The banks suffered denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers barrage a website with traffic until it is overwhelmed and shuts down. Such attacks, while a nuisance, are not technically sophisticated and do not affect a company's computer network or, in this case, funds or customer bank accounts. Hacktivists, calling themselves " Mrt. Izz ad-Din alQasssam Cyber Fighters ," attacked Wells Fargo and posted on Pastebin that U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group are next. The group said it had attacked the banks in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad. It also pledged to continue to attack American credit and financial instit

In JULY Kaspersky Lab and Seculert revealed the presence of a new cyber-espionage weapon known targeting users in the Middle East. Despite the recent uncovering of the 'Madhi' malware that has infected several hundred computers in the Middle East, researchers say the virus is continuing to spread. The malware, known as 'Mahdi' or 'Madi', was originally discovered by Seculert. In addition to stealing data from infected Windows computers, it is also capable of monitoring email and instant messages, recording audio, capturing keystrokes and taking screenshots of victims' computers. Working together, researchers at Seculert and Kaspersky sinkholed the malware's command and control servers and monitored the campaign. What they found was a targeted attack that impacted more than 800 victims in Iran, Israel and other countries from around the globe. Israeli security company Seculert said it had identified about 150 new victims over the past six weeks as deve

Reports have surfaced that liquified natural gas (LNG) producer RasGas , based in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, has been struck by an unidentified virus, this time shutting down its website and email servers. The malware, however, did not affect the company's operational computers that control the production and delivery of gas, an official of the Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas company. The attack reportedly began Aug. 27. The RasGas website was still unavailable on Thursday, three days after the attack. For the second time in two weeks a virus outbreak has been reported at an energy company in that region. Earlier this week the Saudi Aramco oil company confirmed that its network was hit by a virus two weeks ago, shutting down 30,000 workstations. Neither company identified the virus, but in at least one of the cases it is believed to be malware known as "Shamoon." A joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, RasGas exports about 36.3 million tons of liq

A new cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on banking transactions and steal login and passwords, according Kaspersky Lab , a leading computer security firm. After Stuxnet, Duqu, and Flame, this one seems to mainly spy on computer users in Lebanon. It's been dubbed Gauss (although Germanic-linguistic purists will no doubt be complaining that it should be written Gauß). Gauss is a complex cyber-espionage toolkit, highly modular and supports new functions which can be deployed remotely by the operators in the form of plugins. The currently known plugins perform the following functions: Intercept browser cookies and passwords. Harvest and send system configuration data to attackers. Infect USB sticks with a data stealing module. List the content of the system drives and folders Steal credentials for various banking systems in the Middle East. Hijack account information for social network, email and IM accounts. The researchers at Russia-based Ka

A scientist working at the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said computer systems have been hit by a cyber-attack which forced them to play AC/DC's Thunderstruck at full volume in the middle of the night. The attack came to light after a researcher at security firm F-Secure received a string of emails from a Iran's atomic energy organisation." I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom. " " It does sound really weird ," he said. "If there was an attack, why would the attacker announce themselves by playing ' Thunderstruck? " If true, this attack is the third hacking attempt aimed at Tehran's controversial nuclear program. It sounds like the AEOI may have been hit with an infrastructure-targeting malware attack, similar to those that have plagued the Middle East since 201

Flame Malware - 21st Century Massive cyber attack on Iran A massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyber-espionage operation. The Flame computer virus not only stole large quantities of information from various Iranian government agencies, but apparently even disrupted its oil exports by shutting down oil terminals, information security firm Symantec Israel said yesterday. The Flame virus recently found in Iran could be used to infect other countries, according to the International Telecommunications Union. As the United Nations agency charged with helping members protect their data networks, the ITU plans to issue a warning about the danger of Flame. Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team (Maher) said in a statement that the detection and clean-up tool was finished in early May and is now ready for distribution to organisations a

NASA SSL Digital Certificate hacked by Iranian Hackers Iranian hackers ' Cyber Warriors Team ' announced in an online post that it compromised an SSL certificate belonging to NASA and subsequently accessed information on thousands of NASA researchers. A space agency representative revealed that they're currently investigating the incident. The group said the certificate was compromised by exploiting an existing vulnerability within the portal's login system, but they didn't outline the entire attack. Once they had control over the certificate, they claim to have used it to "obtain User information for thousands of NASA researcher With Emails and Accounts of other users [sic]." " These incidents spanned a wide continuum from individuals testing their skill to break into NASA systems, to well-organized criminal enterprises hacking for profit, to intrusions that may have been sponsored by foreign intelligence services seeking to further their countries' objectives, " Paul K.

Call for Articles : THN Magazine June 2012, Malware Edition The Hacker News is calling for our June Magazine on the issue related to MALWARE . We'd like to see an analysis of the history of these most worrying viruses and the contemporary usage in cyber espionage and cyber warfare. It would be interesting to analyze the impact of the malware diffusion in the private sector and in government agencies, emphasizing the effectiveness of the cyber threat. Other topics to study are cyber crime activities that involve malware as method of monetization, with particular references to principal frauds schemes. What is the awareness level on hazards of the malware in common people and how the theat could harm new scenarios like mobiles and Cloud. What are the main countermeasures to mitigate virus diffusion? Thank you for your thoughtful consideration and we are looking forward to your work on this very important topic!  Email us at  admin@thehackernews.com Download all THN Magazin

Iran Preparing For Cyberwar Against U.S Security professionals in both the U.S. government and in private industry have long feared the prospect of a cyberwar with China or Russia, two states capable of launching destructive attacks on the computer networks that control critical assets such as the power grid or the financial system. But, Iran is recruiting a hacker army to target the U.S. power grid, water systems and other vital infrastructure for cyberattack in a future confrontation with the United States, security specialists will warn Congress Thursday. " If Iran is willing to blow up a Washington restaurant and kill innocent Americans, we would be naive to think Iran would never conduct a cyberattack against the U.S. homeland ," said Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman Pat Meehan, R-Pa. " Over the past three years, the Iranian regime has invested heavily in both defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace ," states testimony from Ilan Berman, vi

Cyber Attack on The Iranian Oil Ministry 's Computer Network The Iranian oil ministry's computer network came under attack from hackers and a computer virus, prompting the Islamic Republic to disconnect the country's main oil export terminal from the internet as a preventative measure, a semiofficial news agency reported on Monday. The Mehr News Agency, which is a semi-official arm of the Iranian government, reported Monday that the country's principal oil terminal on Kharg Island was disconnected from the Internet as part of the response to the attacks. Email systems associated with the targets were also pulled offline. Iranian officials said the virus attack, which began in earnest Sunday afternoon, had not affected oil production or exports, since the industry was still primarily mechanical and does not rely on the Internet. Officials said they were disconnecting the oil terminals and possibly some other installations in an effort to combat the virus. Cyberattac

Iran Replicating Captured U.S. Drone RQ-170 Sentinel Iranian military aerospace chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted having said:" The Americans should be aware to what extent we have infiltrated the plane. " Iran has broke the encryption codes and begun construction of a replica of the United States surveillance drone captured last year, according to Iranian officials. American spy drone that went down in Iran last year, including information that the aircraft was used to spy on Osama bin Laden weeks before he was killed. Iran also said it was building a copy of the drone. US Senator Joe Lieberman dismissed the claim that a copy was being made as " Iranian bluster " saying, "they're on the defensive because of our economic sanctions against them". The U.S. says the drone malfunctioned and downplayed any suggestion that Iran could mine the aircraft for sensitive information because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating

Banking System Vulnerability - 3 million bank accounts hacked in Iran Iran's Central Bank has announced that the electronic information of 3 million customers of 10 Iranian banks have been compromised. These banks now require their customers to change their ATM pin numbers before they can access their account. This has caused a rush to the ATM machines by the worried customers. The hacker was identified as Khosro Zare', a former bank-system specialist in Iran who recently left the country.Zare' claimed in a blog that he hacked the PIN codes to highlight the vulnerability of Iran's banking system. According to the report, the hacker had provided the managing directors of the targeted banks with information about the bank accounts of 1000 customers in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) to warn them about the susceptibility of their computer systems and networks to cyber threats. But Central bank officials had earlier downplayed the reports, sayi

Stuxnet was planted by Iranian double agent using memory stick The Stuxnet computer worm used to sabotage Iran's nuclear program was planted by a double agent working for Israel. The agent used a booby-trapped memory stick to infect machines deep inside the Natanz nuclear facility, according to a report published  on Wednesday. The worm is believed to have been placed on a specially crafted USB memory stick and handed over to a Natanz worker who, by all accounts, was an Iranian national belonging to a dissident group named Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK). "The MEK has been listed as a 'foreign terrorist organization' since 1997 because of deadly attacks on Americans abroad, but members of the group have been trained at a secret site in Nevada. U.S. officials consider them 'the assassination arm of Israel's Mossad intelligence service' as they have been connected to the killing of five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007. The incident with Stuxnet is not the fir

Iran replacing Google, Hotmail with its own internal search engines and email services Iran has denied the report that it plans to cut itself off from the Internet. In a statement, the ministry said " The report is in no way confirmed by the ministry ". It added that it was " completely baseless ," and that it served only, " the propaganda wing of the West and providing its hostile media with a pretext emanating from a baseless claim ". Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology Reza Taghipour was reported to have said that Iran plans to disconnect itself from the Internet and replace popular services like Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail with homegrown, Iranian services. They also claim that a system is in beta testing which includes a search engine called " Ya-Haq ", which directly translates as "calling God". The government is already accepting applications for Iran Web Mail accounts , which require you to enter a first and last name, postal add

Kelihos Botnet with 110,000 PCs take down finally Botnets are particularly insidious, using thousands of virus-infected computers which their owners are unaware are being used for sending out spam, launching denial-of-service attacks and stealing data.But taking down a botnet poses challenges. The main problem is that legitimate security companies can't use the same type of weapons as criminals. A group of malware experts from security companies Kaspersky Lab, CrowdStrike, Dell SecureWorks and the Honeynet Project, have worked together to disable the second version of the Kelihos botnet, which is significantly bigger than the one shut down by Microsoft and its partners. Kelihos is used to send spam, carry out DDoS attacks, and steal online currency such as bitcoin wallets. It operates as a so-called "peer-to-peer" bot network, which are more difficult to take down than those with a centralized command and control servers (C&C), according to Tillmann Werner, a senior

Six National Television Stations of Iran Hacked Co-Cain Warriors hackers today hack into 6 National Television Stations of Iran including Broadcasting Elam Center, IRIB Kermanshah Center, IRIB Kerman and 3 more. Hacker upload the deface page on their server and announce the day as " HappY 7Sin Day ". With growing conflicts in middle east more intrusions and DDOS attack on Iranian websites. Iran has been identified as the main cyber threat to the United States,Israel and European Countries. Yesterday we also report that, Iran's cyber defense headquarters has succeeded in making internal mail servers which would enable Iranian organizations and bodies to use local email addresses. Also last week, Iran launched a sophisticated cyber-attack against BBC Persian TV, according to the BBC News. The Reason behind this attack is part of a broader attempt by the government to disrupt the BBC's Persian service. This attack follows various tactics by the Iranian government, s

Iran Defense Forum users logins compromised and Leaked Hacker with name " Le0n B3lm0nt " claimed to hack into the Iran Defense Forum website (irandefence.net) and leak user details of all 3,212 members including their usernames, Emails and Passwords.  Iran Defense Forum is an independent forum that is not associated with the Iranian Government, neither it is affiliated with any governmental or regulatory agencies nor related to any political or religious entity. Hacker leak the database on Pastebin Note . Also two days before  Iran hacked BBC Persian TV  The Reason behind this attack is part of a broader attempt by the government to disrupt the BBC's Persian service. This attack follows various tactics by the Iranian government, such as harassment, arrests, and threats against the relatives of BBC Persia correspondents who still live in Iran, in an effort to force the journalists to quit the Persian news service.

BBC Persian TV hacked by  Iranian government According to BBC News, today Iran hacked BBC Persian TV ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/ ) . This is not the first time the Iranian government has tampered with the BBC's Persian service, Zdnet Report. The Reason behind this attack is part of a broader attempt by the government to disrupt the BBC's Persian service. This  attack follows various tactics by the Iranian government, such as harassment, arrests, and threats against the relatives of BBC Persia correspondents who still live in Iran, in an effort to force the journalists to quit the Persian news service. In Addition to this, The BBC's London office was inundated with automatic phone calls and the company's satellite feeds into Iran were also jammed, while this only affected owners of illegal satellite dishes, these are of course the only ones that can receive the BBC signal in Iran. The BBC has previously accused Iran of attempting to jam its broadcasts by eliminating VPN network