Tightening the Net Part 2: The Soft War and Cyber Tactics in Iran 2017 Executive Summary “ In this situation, we should know, before anything, what is happening in cyberspace so that we can use our knowledge, science, and persistence to defeat our enemy in the soft war.” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei Despite being one of the region’s leading cyberpowers, Iran is Those who express dissent, including social activists and one of the worst violators of international standards relating to human rights campaigners, (who frequently fail to adopt the Internet, routinely violating human rights exercised online, necessary online security precautions such as complex and using online tactics to restrict rights exercised offline. passwords and online anonymity) are monitored and even A regime-led ideological Soft War threatens to keep Iranian arrested. In subsequent interrogations they are often citizens isolated from the rest of the world, and unable to subjected to torture and other ill-treatment: the authorities exercise their rights to freedom of expression and information. thus obtain key information – communications, online account In order to understand how to address the challenges facing details, web histories – which enables the persecution of other freedom of expression in Iran both off- and online, it is targets of interest. This has been one of the most effective essential to understand how online control is implemented techniques in gathering information on human rights activists. and maintained. The second type of activity is cyberattacks i.e. hacking: The Soft War has remained of great importance to the intrusive malware, monitoring, and, for example, Distributed Iranian regime, with a particular surge in activity after Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks carried out on actors the controversial 2009 elections, five months after which perceived to be in opposition to state ideology: the targets are Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei stated: “Today, the suspected of being selected by state actors, and civil society country’s priority is to fight the enemy’s soft war.”1 and political opponents have been shown to be primary targets of such intrusive tactics. This not only directly interferes with There has been much discussion, by international civil both the activities and publications of organisations deemed society, as well as groups and individuals within Iran to oppose the government, but can also lead to information including members of the Iranian establishment itself, of used to arrest and prosecute dissenting individuals or groups. an ‘Iranian Cyber Army’ (ICA) – an organised group with It is important to note the difficulty in researching hacking official oversight and support of the Iranian government. actions and groups, especially in determining the attribution The origin and structure of this group are extremely difficult and intent of intrusive online actions. to establish, but there is clear evidence of online actors and tactics, whose actions and goals often align with those of the Perhaps the greatest success of the Iranian government’s Iranian authorities, even shifting with that political agenda. online campaign, at least domestically, is the ‘chilling Individuals and groups targeted by this group are often civil effect’: the establishment of a climate of fear that surpasses society, activists, and political opposition groups, though actual surveillance capabilities and encourages online diasporic Iranians have also been targeted, as well as state communicators and activists to self-censor. It would be entities seen as oppositional or a threat (potentially including impossible to maintain a catch-all censorship or monitoring the US Department of Justice2). programme, but by instilling in Iranian citizens a sense of fear, the surveillance and blocking do not have to be There are two distinct types of online activity which contribute comprehensive. to the hegemony of state ideology and discourse: the first is the content of the Soft War itself online – the production and This report aims to provide an insight into the online tactics promotion of state-sanctioned ideological content, with the and networks active in Iran’s Soft War, using a combination restriction of content perceived to threaten tradition Iranian of primary sources, interviews, and metadata collection. cultural and political values. (See Methodology) 1 Supreme Leader Meeting with Basij Members, Khamenei.ir, November 2009, (online) Available at: http://farsi. khamenei.ir/news-content?id=8429 Accessed: 1 March 2016. 2 Motherboard, US Charges Iranians With Coordinated Cyber Attacks on Banks, Companies, 24 March 2016, available at: https://motherboard.vice.com/read/us-charges-iranians-with-coordinated-cyber-attacks-on-banks-companies. Accessed: 1 March 2016. 2 1 Table of contents Executive Summary 1 Section 6 39 International human rights 40 Glossary and Abbreviations 4 The Right to Freedom of Expression and Information 41 Content restriction: blocking and filtering 41 Introduction 6 Surveillance of communicators and activists 42 Hacking 42 The IRGC and ICA 8 The chilling effect 42 Section 1 11 Iran and the Internet - a brief history 12 Conclusions 43 Early history 12 2009 Elections 12 Recommendations 45 President Rouhani 13 Recommendations to the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran 45 Recommendations to the Iranian online community 45 Section 2 15 Information online – filtering, smart filtering and monitoring 16 Methodology 46 Introduction 16 Bandwidth throttling 16 Appendices 47 Blocking & filtering 16 ‘Smart Filtering’ 18 Agencies involved in filtering 19 Filtering evidence of hacking? 20 Section 3 21 Monitoring, prosecutions, and shrinking civic space 22 Introduction 25 ‘Catphishing’ and infiltration: creation of fake accounts on social media 25 Reporting social media accounts 25 User data gathered by companies 26 Section 4 27 Content creation and promotion 29 Content promotion tactics 29 1. Reproducing content - with or without citation 29 2. Clickjacking: using links in <iframe> tags 29 3. Promoting content from other websites and providing links to original sources 30 4. Reproducing content on blogs and social media 30 Section 5 31 Intrusive cybertactics – hacking 32 Introduction 33 Hacking groups 35 Cyber Army: a profile of recruits 36 Hacking techniques 36 Remote Access Technology or Remote Administration Technology (RAT) 36 Phishing 36 DDoS attacks 37 The effects of hacking 37 2 3 Glossary and Abbreviations Basij The Organisation for Mobilisation of the Oppressed ICT Ministry of Information and Communications Technology RAT Remote Access Trojan. A RAT is a piece of software that (Basij) is a paramilitary volunteer militia established in allows a remote ‘operator’ to control a system as if they have 1979 by order of the Islamic Revolution’s leader Ayatollah IP Internet Protocol. IP is the principal communications physical access to that system. Malicious RAT software is Khameini. protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams typically installed without the victim’s knowledge, often as across network boundaries. Its routing function enables payload of a Trojan horse, and will try to hide its operation CCDOC Committee Charged with Determining Offensive internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. from the victim and from security software. Content IPDF Iranian Passive Defence Force RCDC/Gerdab Revolutionary Guards Cyber Defence Command CCL Computer Crimes Law - Gerdab is the centre for the investigation of organised crime IRGC Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (Army of the of the IRGC. CERT Computer Emergency Response Team. CERT are expert Guardians of the Islamic Revolution). groups that handle computer security incidents. Alternative SAFAVA Iranian Intelligence and Security Technology names for such groups include computer emergency readiness IRIB Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. Industries team and computer security incident response team. ISP Internet Service Provider: the ISP is a company that SCC Supreme Council on Cyberspace DAFUS University of Command & Control of the Islamic provides access to the Internet, usually for a fee. Republic of Iran’s Army SCCR Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution ITC An organisation affiliated with the Ministry of Information DCISE Deep Content Inspection System Expansion. Deep and Communications Technology named ‘The Data Company’ Social engineering The psychological manipulation of people Content Inspection (DCI) is a form of network filtering that (currently known as the Information Technology Company, in order to trick them into performing actions that would examines an entire file or MIME object as it passes an or ITC). divulge confidential information. inspection point, searching for viruses, spam, data loss, keywords or other content level criteria. ITRC Iran’s Telecommunications Research Centre, currently Spear phishing An attempt to acquire sensitive information known as the Information and Communication Technology such as usernames and passwords by masquerading as a DDoS Distributed denial-of-service. A DDoS attack occurs Research Centre. trustworthy entity in an electronic communication, tailored when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a and targeted towards a specific individual, organisation or targeted system, usually one or more web servers. MOI Ministry of Intelligence. business DoS Denial of service. A DoS attack is an attempt to make MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a mechanism TCI Telecommunication