Iran has reportedly stepped up cyberattacks on the U.S. military. The news comes at a time when President Obama and Iranian President Hasan Rouhani communicated by phone call Friday for the first time since the Carter administration.
Cyberintrusions aimed at an unclassified computer network belonging to the U.S. Navy began the week of Sept. 15, just before a planned upgrade, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“Iran is very active,” said James Lewis, a former State Department official and cybersecurity specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to The Wall Street Journal. “They’re better than we thought.”
Officials told The Wall Street Journal that Iran’s latest cyberattacks, which have typically been aimed at the private sector, came as a surprise, “and showed the Iranians had gained greater capability than many in the U.S. government believed.”
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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