"Iranian fingerprints are all over this campaign, and government fingerprints in particular," John Hultquist, FireEye's director of cyber espionage analysis, told Reuters. APT33 was the first state-backed group from Iran to join a list FireEye has compiled over more than a decade that identifies campaigns by Chinese, Russian and North Korean cyber spies. Cilluffo, a former homeland security advisor to President George W Bush, estimated last year in testimony before the US Congress that Iran's cyber budget had jumped twelve-fold under President Rouhani, making it a "top five world cyber-power". Adam Meyer, vice president of CrowdStrike, another top US cyber security firm, said there has been a vast uptick in attacks by Iran against Saudi Arabia since last year. Broader-based attacks against Saudi Arabia since 2016 use similar malware, with some changes, demonstrating Iran's ability to mount on-going campaigns, he said.

Source: bd News24 September 20, 2017 20:15 UTC