U.S. launched cyber attacks on Iranian military computer systems after drone shot down
The U.S. Cyber Command reportedly launched a cyber attack against Iran last Thursday even after President Donald Trump backed off from using conventional weapons to strike Iran in response to the downing of an American surveillance drone, U.S. officials said on Saturday.
The attacks specifically targeted a spy group tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s Armed Forces, which was designated a foreign terrorist group by the Trump administration earlier this year. The hack disabled Iranian systems that used to control some of the country’s rocket and missile launchers.
Two former intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the strikes were conducted with approval from Trump.
Apparently, the online attacks had been developed by the U.S. over several weeks, which was meant to be a direct response to last week’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone by Iran for violating airspace.
“This operation imposes costs on the growing Iranian cyber threat, but also serves to defend the United States Navy and shipping operations in the Strait of Hormuz,” Thomas Bossert, a former senior White House cyber-official in the Trump administration, told the Washington Post.
“Our US military has long known that we could sink every IRGC vessel in the strait within 24 hours if necessary,” Bossert told the Post. “And this is the modern version of what the US Navy has to do to defend itself at sea and keep international shipping lanes free.”
The cyber-attack comes tensions escalate between the two countries with Mr. Trump saying that Iran faced “obliteration” in the event of war.
Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike after he learned that up to 150 Iranians could have been potentially killed.
“I stopped it, not … proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone,” he tweeted at the time.
Mr. Trump tweeted: “I never called the strike against Iran “BACK,” as people are incorrectly reporting, I just stopped it from going forward at this time!” He also tweeted that the U.S. would be imposing “major additional sanctions” on Iran.