U.S. Helps Allies Trying to Battle Iranian Hackers
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has begun helping Middle Eastern allies build up their defenses against Iran’s growing arsenal of cyberweapons, and will be doing the same in Asia to contain computer-network attacks from North Korea, according to senior American officials.
The American officials would not say which countries in the Persian Gulf
have signed up for help in countering Iran’s computer abilities. But
the list, some officials say, includes the nations that have been the
most active in tracking Iranian arms shipments, intercepting them in
ports and providing intelligence to the United States about Iranian
actions. The three most active in that arena are Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
In Asia, the countries most worried about being struck by North Korean computer attacks are South Korea and Japan.
The Defense Department’s assertive new effort in the gulf and Asia is
the latest example of how the Obama administration is increasingly
tailoring its national security efforts for a new era of digital
conflict, in this case assuring the defense of computer networks and, if
necessary, striking back against assaults.
A directive signed by the president that surfaced Friday
— the third in a series of leaked documents published by the newspapers
The Guardian and The Washington Post — underscored how the Obama
administration is trying to prepare itself and its allies. The leaks
also revealed how the Obama administration has put in place a large
Internet surveillance operation to identify terrorism threats.
The presidential directive included the declaration that the United
States reserved the right to take “anticipatory action” against
“imminent threats,” a reference, it seemed, to the kind of crippling
infrastructure attacks that Iran appears to be working on against
American and allied targets.
The new help for strengthening computer-network defenses for allies,
which has not been publicly announced, closely parallels earlier efforts
by the Obama administration in two volatile parts of the world. In
recent years it has helped install advanced missile-defense systems and
early-warning radars in Persian Gulf nations to counter Iran’s missile
ability, and it has done something similar in Asia in response to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
But deterring cyberattacks is a far more complex problem, and American
officials concede that this effort, which will include providing
computer hardware and software and training to allies, is an experiment.
It has been propelled by two high-profile attacks in the past year. One
was against Saudi Aramco,
Saudi Arabia’s largest, state-run oil producer, and according to
American officials it was carried out by Iran. That attack crippled
30,000 computers but did not succeed in halting production. The other, an attack on South Korea’s banking and media companies this spring, was later attributed to North Korea. It froze the ability of several banks to operate for days.
“The Iranian attack on the Saudis was a real wake-up call in the
region,” said one senior administration official, who would not speak on
the record about the American efforts to counter Iran. “It made
everyone realize that while the Iranians might think twice about
launching a missile attack in the region, they see cyber as a potent way
to lash out in response to sanctions.”
The administration is capitalizing on the fear created by those attacks
to build on the de facto alliance against Iran that it has constructed
in the region. The Pentagon is drawing up proposals for providing
advanced hardware and software for computer-network defense that could
be sold throughout the Persian Gulf, much as American aircraft and
missiles are sold to Arab allies. Training programs are being put
together to teach computer security to military and law enforcement in
the region, and to collaborate with private companies.
And, just as the Pentagon conducts naval exercises in the Persian Gulf
to practice ways of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, officials say
future joint war games would include simulated cyberattacks, similar to
the one Iran conducted against Saudi Aramco.
The idea is to give American and allied forces practice carrying out
their missions with their networks under duress, officials said.
The new interagency effort in Washington comes at a time when Israeli
and American intelligence officials have been concerned by Iran’s swift
advances in its computer weaponry, particularly its ability to disrupt
existing infrastructure. As one former senior American military
commander said recently, “They have startled everyone with the speed at
which their capabilities have increased.”
But one continuing point of dispute is whether Iran and North Korea are
working together on the development of cyberweapons, the way they have
worked together for years on the development of missile technology.
A senior Israeli military official said Israel had evidence that Iran
and North Korea were beginning to collaborate on developing
cyberweapons. He declined to cite the specific evidence.
Although there is concern in Washington that cooperation between Iran
and North Korea could spread to computer tools, American officials say
there is no proof of such collaboration.
A senior Defense Department official said the program to develop
computer skills among allies would focus solely on defending against
disruptive and destructive attacks on networks for the military and
critical infrastructure. The United States will not share its growing
arsenal of offensive cyberweapons, which, like nuclear arms, can be
deployed only on presidential order.
Those have been used in only one major case: the American and Israeli
attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment system, part of a covert program
called Olympic Games that delayed, but ultimately failed to destroy, Iran’s nuclear ability.
Officials pledge that computer hardware and software eventually provided
to allied nations will be evaluated to avoid providing the type of
defensive systems that also can be used for domestic surveillance or to
punish political opponents.
This new focus on adding computer-warfare skills to a global effort the
Pentagon calls “building partner capacity” — and usually refers to more
traditional training of conventional forces — is another indication of
the high level of concern in Washington about the growing danger of
computer-network attacks from Iran or North Korea.
After the attacks on energy firms in the Persian Gulf, “we recognized
that we really need to bolster our working relationships with key allies
in the region,” said one senior Defense Department official. “We made a
very conscious strategy decision to make that a priority, both in the
gulf and also in Asia.”
Iran, in particular, is viewed as having greatly accelerated its
computer efforts. The advancements appear to be the result of carefully
focusing the work of a domestic computer sciences and hacking community.
The emerging Iranian program is far more disciplined and mature than
Tehran’s previous efforts, which had focused on social media to coax
American military personnel based in the Middle East and Persian Gulf
region to sign up for dating and travel services, or chat rooms. The
goal was to obtain the online information from American military
personnel to find back doors into military computer systems.
In addition, American officials say Iran now is believed to be hiring
foreign computer programmers associated with Internet criminal activity,
some from Russia.
And, perhaps most worrisome, Iran and other nations now are able to
purchase powerful malware that, while costly, is available on the black
and gray markets — and can quickly advance the potency of a nation’s
destructive ability across computer networks.
In the rankings of computer powers, Iran and North Korea are far lower
in ability than the United States, Israel, Britain, Russia and China.
China and Russia, however, have strong incentives to limit the
destructiveness of their attacks; they are so tied into the global
economy that anything truly disruptive to financial or energy markets
would backfire. But North Korea and Iran, especially in times of rising
tensions, would be less prone to show restraint, American officials say.
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