Iranian, pro-Russia hackers unite after US, Israel attacks

Iran-linked threat operations have joined forces with pro-Russia hacktivist groups in deploying cyberattacks against critical infrastructure in the U.S. and the Middle East as part of the #OpIsrael campaign launched in the wake of joint U.S.-Israeli missile strikes against the country over the weekend, reports Cybersecurity Dive.

Intrusions part of the campaign include a widespread distributed denial-of-service attack by Iran's Cyber Islamic Resistance and pro-Russian hacktivist gang NoName057(16) against an Israeli defense contractor and several municipal entities, as well as the Iranian group's purported attack against an Israeli health insurance provider, an analysis from Flashpoint revealed. Multiple other entities, including a Pennsylvania town, a virtual U.S. Air Force group, and educational organizations in France, India, and Vietnam, have also been targeted by the FAD Team.

Another report from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers showed that both Iran- and Russia-linked hackers were among the nearly 60 threat actors that launched cyberattacks since the U.S. and Israeli strikes. While Iran has been unable to effectively respond to the bombing so far, U.S. critical infrastructure organizations were noted by Foundation for Defense of Democracies analysts to still be at risk of compromise.