Iran likely behind release of Saudi secret documents

The Hill:

Iranian hackers may have stolen the Saudi government documents that were later released by WikiLeaks, The Washington Post reported Friday.

The pro-transparency group last week published roughly 70,000 documents it claimed were from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry. WikiLeaks says it has at least half a million documents in total from the ministry, and that more will be released soon.

The group may have gotten its hands on the documents from Tehran-backed digital thieves.

“These events fit a pattern that looks and smells like Iranian-proxy actors,” Jen Weedon, manager of threat intelligence at security firm FireEye, told The Post.

The intrusion could be tied to the ongoing discussions between Iran and six countries, including the United States, to limit Tehran’s nuclear program. Negotiators face a June 30 deadline in the talks.

The Saudis are also battling rebels in Yemen who are allied with Iran.

The digital invaders appear to be part of an Iranian hacking group, dubbed Operation Cleaver, that security firm Cylance uncovered in a December report.

The scale, breadth and duration of Operation Cleaver revealed an Iranian cyber sophistication long suspected and occasionally seen, but rarely confirmed.
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This appears to demonstrate once again that the defensive measures to prevent cyber attacks are totally inadequate and there appears to be no counter strategy in place anywhere.   There is no malware used to attack the attacker when they breach security.  There is no apparent ability to strike the attacker.  They are just allowed in to raid data and get away with it.