US to increase response to Iranian cyber attacks

VOA:
The United States is looking to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East with a more aggressive approach in cyberspace.

“They operate almost entirely in what we refer to as the gray zone, that space between normal international competition and armed conflict,” the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, said Wednesday in Washington, calling it “an area ripe for cyberspace operations.”

“We at CENTCOM are examining ways to compete in the gray zone,” he said. “Integrating cyberspace operations as part of a holistic approach is clearly a critical part of that.”

U.S. intelligence and military officials have long warned of Tehran’s “malign influence” in the Middle East. And they say Iran is increasingly relying upon its cyber operations to shape both the battlefield and the information environment in places like Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Votel told an audience at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit that, like Russia, Iran has focused its attention on social media, and has seen its efforts pay off on the international stage.

“[Iran’s] ability to use cyberspace to manipulate information out there, to propagate their message, I think, is the key aspect that we deal with,” Votel said. “The recent disagreement between Saudi Arabia, the [United Arab] Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt with Qatar is a glaring example.”

Although Votel described Iran as “clearly the top threat” to long-term stability in the Middle East, he said Russia and China have also been carrying out various types of cyber operations across the region.
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The upgraded US Cyber Command is going to e very busy dealing with Iran, Russia, and China cyber activity.  It is an area where the US has been lacking in dealing with adversaries.

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