Iran’s Cyberarmy: Is “Norse Company” as good as they think they are?

A report has been recently issued regarding Iran’s possible plans to carry out cyber attacks in USA. This report is really surprising not only because of the shocking claims but also the identity of the reporters. A Silicon Valley cyber security Company and a Washington think tank which has been one of the strong oppositions of the nuclear deal with Iran had issued this report. The report warns that if US removed the sanctions against Iran, the Iranian government will use the money to strengthen its Cyber warfare program.

However, it is interesting to know that before publication of the report, the Silicon Valley cyber security company has been sharing his information about Iran’s cyber warfare with US intelligence organisations. According to some US government officials, the information provided by the security company received negative reactions from the US officials that were trying to reach nuclear deal with Iran.

Based on this report, which was written by the cyber security company Norse in January of this year, Norse company claimed that it had data on “more than 500,000 attacks on Industrial Control systems over the last 24 months” referring to the computers that help to run electricity generation companies, hydroelectric facilities, and other critical infrastructure in the U.S.

Norse’s claim of half a million “attacks” is a very large number and they haven’t explained or shown any evidence in the document to prove their claim. They have just mentioned that more details are forthcoming in a report that the company will publish “later this year.” The bulletin also claims that Iran is targeting computer systems and Web sites inside the United States.

It seems that Norse company’s conclusions were based on the idea that Iran was behind malicious cyber activity just because the traffic was emanating from particular Internet protocol addresses located in Iran. But hackers routinely use IP addresses outside their own country to hide their true location.

Iranian cyber attacks against U.S. are not new: the cyber attack on the Sands casino company destroyed some of the company’s information assets and Iran was behind an attack on U.S. bank websites in 2012. However, the Norse document was making some of the most possible serious claims in cyber security accusing Iran as a country hostile to the U.S. targeting industrial control systems. 

 

Later, Norse appeared to remove its findings when its joint report was published in April and the claim of 500,000 attacks is nowhere to be found in that document. The findings also says that Iran specifically targeted Industrial Control Systems (ICS) in the United States 47 times during 2014. Yet again, the final report also doesn’t include that statement.

This report was intended to present a strategic view of Iran’s capabilities in cyberspace—which many U.S. officials have described as growing and dangerous and not to provide evidence for the U.S. to carry out some retaliatory action before any crime has taken place.

Kurt Stammberger, who is a senior deputy managing director at Norse, defended the report by saying that “briefing summaries [such as the bulletin] make theories that sometimes, at the end of the day, aren’t produced by the data”.

Norse’s critics say that it isn’t definitive enough to say that Iran was certainly trying to target industrial control systems. And it could make Iran look like more of a threat than it might actually be.

Even some of Norse’s critics have said that their ability to collect huge amounts of technical data is impressive and important. Although we don’t deny the company’s expertise but they are clearly not an expert on Iran.

Project "Pistachio Harvest"

Months of research in Iranian networks is uncovering at least 16000 systems controlled by Iran outside borders and 2000 of these were infected machines of businesses in the US, Israel and other countries.

Many of the Internet Protocol addresses (IPs) of those machines are hosting .ir websites, domains that are used as platforms for attacks. According to the company, in many cases visitors to those sites are later infected with malware, software designed specifically for surveillance and to obtain valuable data from target organisations.

Most targets are in the US although attacks have also hit including UK, Israel, Germany and Canada. Various US and European hosting companies also have been abused. Cloud and hosting services of industry giants like Amazon and GoDaddy are used to launch the attacks.

Norse believes previous research into Iranian activity may included false assumptions about the actors involved as Iran has been able at creating disinformation and used more than 5000 fake social networking profiles to trick viewers to following tracks to nobody and nowhere.

iSight released a report and claimed that these fake profiles were used to spy on military leaders and political staff across the world.

Norse set up fake systems that appeared to belong to businesses and critical infrastructure providers that was attractive to attackers. The organization collected data of subsequent attacks and traced a large number to Iran. Norse also used "millions of sensors dropped all over the world" and analysis tools for tracing.

Turkey and Iran collaborate on cyber issues and is reported that Turkey in exchange for oil and other goods helped Iran circumvent US and European sanctions that were implemented in response to that country's nuclear programs.

Rival security research firm CrowdStrike says that it tracks four different Iranian groups that it calls Kittens. Each Kitten is separate from the other and has its own modus operandi and target list. Finally there is Cutting Kitten.

Role of Iran’s Universities

Islamic Republic of Iran has other ways in encour aging IT entrepreneurs follow its commands. For example the role of government in Iran’s university system is enormous. The regime invested large amounts in building IT and other scientific infrastructure at the top educational institutions including Sharif Univer sity of Technology, Shahid Beheshti University and IRGC linked Malek Ashtar University and in return can direct research in ways to pursue regime objectives.

The development of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after 2003 is an example for understand ing the evolution of the relationship between gov ernment, security services and universities in IT. When Supreme Leader Khamenei ordered stop to Iran’s state nuclear weapons research program after the US invasion to Iraq in 2003 and his lieutenants built a new structure that spread rel evant research through the university system.

The scale and effects of this effort are visible but assessing the level of awareness and or willingness of all the univer sity participants in it is not easy and Iran’s IT sector works in a similar fashion. Government and secu rity institutions collaborate with universities in research to achieve government aims and make faculties and students components of regime strategic efforts. Students after graduation find themselves in a network of associations and research projects that mostly also supports regime priorities, whether they know or not.

The Islamic Republic also uses incentives created by mandatory military service to encourage aspiring young programmers to support state security efforts directly. At least one scientist involved in research related to development of nuclear weapons writes in his resume that he was exempted from com pulsory military service in exchange for work on a project deemed useful to the armed forces. This pro gram of exemption was developed in 2007.

Therefore Iran’s leaders have carefully and consciously built national IT, education and corporate infrastruc tures that produce excellently educated developers with incentives to pursue government objectives and not use skills against the government. They have involved Iran’s security organs especially the IRGC, through these structures in ways to allow the regime uses these IT and hacking capabilities with plausible deniability. In addition they have built an internet infrastructure designed to hide the sources of malicious activity and give the government the ability to monitor, regulate and control citizens access to the internet in extremely detailed ways.

Full details of the Norse Project Pistachio Harvest report are found here: www.pistachioharvest.com/#/dashboard