Iran and Other Foreign Cyber Threats

say how dare you take him out that way you should get permission from Congress these are split-second decisions you have to make a decision that split-second decision now has some cyber security experts worried about retaliation in the form of TAC and attacks on things like banks universities power grids or even dams we talked to Dave Schroeder a professor at the UW who specializes in cybersecurity he tells us why most businesses and organizations are now on continual watch for these kinds of threats Iran is no stranger to cyberattacks especially what's given what's happened this month how concerned should people be well that's a really good question Iran has been developing a robust cyberattack capability it's been about over the last decade that they've done this and there are some examples of them attacking us targets so if we look back over the last few years back in 2010 in 2011 they attacked a number of large US banks 46 banks hundreds of thousands of people are locked out of their accounts there's an example of them attacking a dam the critical infrastructure controls for a dam in New York State they attacked the Sands Casino when the owner of the casino sheldon adelson made a comment that they took as a slight and they attacked the city of Atlanta and took down all of their computer systems with the samsam ransomware and all of these attacks were camp came from iran-backed hackers and were directed by the Iranian government and they took you know in some cases weeks to months and millions of dollars to recover from so that's an example of what Iran has done in the past but should people be worried concerned at home right now well with the recent conflict and controversy that's going on between the United States and Iran may be looking for a way to send a message beyond what it has done with the missile strike against the US bases in Iraq and the most likely place that's going to happen is in the cyber realm right now everyone's trying to understand what really constitutes an act of war in the cyber realm and it really isn't going to be things like website defacement which we've already seen for Moran it's not going to be things like you know propaganda or misinformation on social media it's going to be an attack that whose goal is to cause property destruction or loss of life now they don't have a capability to do that on a wide scale but that may be the type of attack that they're after that was my next question kind of what these will look like but what kind of consequences is it gonna impact people their money infrastructures well the iran's history here is targeting businesses government websites oil and gas firms and there is evidence that over the last year and this is more preparatory in nature but over the last year they have been conducting probing and what are called password spraying attacks against energy infrastructure in the united states there's thousands of examples of this there's a report just this last week that came out from a firm called drago security that has provided evidence of this and that could be you know essentially them setting the stage for a possible future attack are they a bigger threat than russia they're a different threat than russia how so and the way that they're different is they've been you know they have been willing to use propaganda on social media and some bots and troll networks not to the same extent that Russia has Iran will more you light up these networks when they need to and then they'll disappear and sometimes they'll get removed you know by Facebook and Twitter as well and they've been watching countries like Russia and China and getting help in some cases to develop their own cyber warfare capability do we have to worry about other enemies of the state taken advantage of this current situation you know that's a really interesting question in the immediate aftermath of both the soleimani strike and Iran's retaliation Twitter and social media you know Facebook Instagram were flooded with misinformation and disinformation about these attacks pro-iranian propaganda anti-us propaganda but the interesting thing is some of that is from not from Iran it'll it's from Russia its from criminal elements its from other countries who see this as an opportunity to enter the fray and stir up chaos so they're already doing it they're already doing what can people at home do to maybe better protect themselves during this situation so any attack that Iran may conduct isn't going to be targeted at individuals it's businesses governments municipalities

utilities things like that so what can you do to prepare it's the same advice that you've probably heard a number of times make sure that all of your software is up-to-date don't ignore security updates make sure you have good backups and largely just be aware that in the social media space you're going to see disinformation and propaganda especially in the immediate wake of any kind of attack or a major event so wait for that situation to calm down until reputable media and verifiable sources can get in there speaking of cybersecurity attacks now that were in 2020 many people at home remember would happen in 2016 with misinformation online are we still gonna be at that same threat that we were in 2016 or are things getting better things are getting better because the social media companies have an increasing handle on what those types of attacks and techniques that foreign actors use look like so they're really getting a handle on things like advertising and gaming their algorithms to make content go viral but it's a really hard problem to get in front of because the Google Facebook Twitter they just don't have the manpower for this and adversaries especially state actors are always going to be good you know looking to get out in front and so I think in 2020 what we're gonna see is an evolution of this problem where it's not just going to be Russia playing there it's going to be actors like Iran like China and other elements who are seeking to in flow the way that people think behave that's the goal of this kind of activity is there any way to halt it all there when we have an open society like we do and when we have these us-based platforms that are fundamentally open in nature it's there's no way that you can stop this 100% because these platforms are designed to share information so that their fundamental reason for being is to get information out there whether it's to share with friends or family for advertisers to reach people for corporations to interact with one another and customers and so when you have foreign state actors in the mix they're gonna have access to those same tools and resources alright thank you so much for joining us Graham