Iran war to escalate US organizations’ cyber risk

U.S. public finance issuers are expected by credit ratings agencies to face escalated cybersecurity threats amid the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, reports Cybersecurity Dive.

Hacktivists and state-backed threat operations could intensify distributed denial-of-service attacks and other cyber intrusions against U.S. critical infrastructure in retaliation for the missile strikes against Iran, an analysis from Fitch Ratings showed.

"So that's the challenge I think we're seeing now, because, historically, municipal and local entities have not benefited from the same robust investment in cybersecurity," said Fitch Ratings Director of U.S. Public Finance Omid Rahmani. Ransomware and data wiping attacks are also detrimental to credit ratings due to their lingering impact on critical services, according to Moody's Ratings Cyber Risk Senior Credit Officer Leroy Terrelonge, who warned of possible insurance coverage issues stemming from war exclusions language that could mean increased costs for organizations.

Such sentiments follow a CyberCube report that revealed extreme Iran-linked attack vulnerability among 12% of major U.S. corporations.