CSS CYBER DEFENSE PROJECT Hotspot Analysis: Iranian cyber-activities in the context of regional rivalries and international tensions Zürich, May 2019 Version 1 Risk and Resilience Team Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich Iranian cyber-activities in the context of regional rivalries and international tensions Authors: Marie Baezner © 2019 Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich Contact: Center for Security Studies Haldeneggsteig 4 ETH Zürich CH-8092 Zürich Switzerland Tel.: +41-44-632 40 25
[email protected] www.css.ethz.ch Analysis prepared by: Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich ETH-CSS project management: Tim Prior, Head of the Risk and Resilience Research Group Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Deputy Head for Research and Teaching, Andreas Wenger, Director of the CSS Disclaimer: The opinions presented in this study exclusively reflect the authors’ views. Please cite as: Baezner, Marie (2019): Hotspot Analysis: Iranian cyber-activities in context of regional rivalries and international tensions, May 2019, Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich. 1 Iranian cyber-activities in the context of regional rivalries and international tensions Table of Contents 1 Introduction 4 2 Background and chronology 5 3 Description 9 3.1 Attribution and actors 9 Iranian APTs 9 Iranian patriotic hackers 11 Western actors 12 3.2 Targets 12 Iranian domestic targets 12 Middle East 12 Other targets 13 3.3 Tools and techniques 13 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks 13 Fake personas, social engineering and spear phishing 13