From Clint Watts: Rinse and repeat: Iran accelerates its cyber influence operations worldwide
Clint Watts – General Manager, Digital Threat Analysis Center at Microsoft writes: “Rinse and repeat: Iran accelerates its cyber influence operations worldwide:
Iran continues to be a significant threat actor, and it is now supplementing its traditional cyberattacks with a new playbook, leveraging cyber-enabled influence operations (IO) to achieve its geopolitical aims.
Microsoft has detected these efforts rapidly accelerating since June 2022. We attributed 24 unique cyber-enabled influence operations to the Iranian government last year – including 17 from June to December – compared to just seven in 2021. We assess that most of Iran’s cyber-enabled influence operations are being run by Emennet Pasargad – which we track as Cotton Sandstorm (formerly NEPTUNIUM) – an Iranian state actor sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for their attempts to undermine the integrity of the 2020 US Presidential Elections.
Read full article: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/05/02/dtac-iran-cyber-influence-operations-digital-threat/
Hugh Taylor
Hugh Taylor is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM). In addition to editing Journal of Cyber Policy, he writes about cybersecurity, compliance and enterprise technology for such clients as Microsoft, IBM, SAP, HPE, Oracle, Google and Advanced Micro Devices. Prior to launching his freelance writing career, he served in executive roles at Microsoft, IBM and several venture-backed technology startups.