Cyber is emerging as Iran’s weapon of choice for dealing with both domestic and foreign opponents.
For more than a decade, the Islamic Republic has waged a relentless cyberspying campaign against Iranian dissidents. Following its discovery of the Stuxnet cyberattacks on its nuclear program in 2010 and the imposition of new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors starting in 2011, it retaliated by conducting cyber attacks against petroleum-sector targets in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. financial sector. Meanwhile, it dramatically ramped up cyber spying efforts against foreign officials engaged in Iran policy, particularly in the United States, and cyber reconnaissance activities against critical infrastructure in the U.S. and elsewhere.
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