Israel warns Iran behind new cyber terror threat to world infrastructure

TEL AVIV: A new report released over the weekend, warned that Iranian terror groups are engaged in acts of cyber terrorism against industrial controllers in various nations, among them in the water sector in the USA.

The report was compiled jointly by Israel’s national cyber system and American cyber defence bodies, including the CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), FBI, NSA and the American Environmental Protection Agency.

However, Israel’s government emphasized that so far no recent attack has been observed that succeeded in disrupting water controllers in Israel.

The report states that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been designated as a terrorist organization since 2019, operates an attack group calling itself the “Cyber Avengers” who were recently observed trying to damage industrial controllers made in Israel by the firm Unitronics.

These controllers are widely used around the world to combat Industrial companies in the fields of water, energy, food and health.

The report details the methods and tactics, which were described as “unsophisticated,” used by this group to break into or attempt to break into these controllers as well as the ways to defend against them.

The warning comes against the background of detection of this type of attack starting on November 22 of this year across the US.

The various cyber protection agencies call on all organizations that use products of this type to implement the defences and attack identifiers detailed in the report as soon as possible.

Among the recommended actions for protection: implementing the attack identifiers, changing the controller’s default password, implementing multi-step authentication, implementing a firewall, setting up a backup and more.

Recently in the US, they identified the activity of the “Cyber Avengers” group against local water and sewage facilities in various states in the US that use Unitronics tech.