Cipher Brief Expert and former Director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander (Ret.) and Jamil N. Jaffer, founder of the National Security Institute at George Mason University, weigh in on possible Iranian responses to recent U.S. actions in a column first published in The Hill.
General Keith Alexander (Ret.), Former Director, National Security Agency
GEN (Ret) Keith Alexander is the CEO and President of IronNet Cybersecurity. He served as the director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service from 2005-2014. He was also the first Commander, U.S. Cyber Command.
Jamil N. Jaffer, Founder, National Security Institute, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer currently serves as the Founder of the National Security Institute and as an Adjunct Professor of Law and Director of the National Security Law & Policy Program at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
We need to prepare. With the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln and a group of B-52 bombers to the Middle East, tensions with Iran have reached a critical phase. While Iran poses a very real threat to the world’s supply of oil, the current situation also underscores that we must be prepared — immediately — to counter Iranian-sponsored terrorism and to respond to the threat that Iran’s growing cyber capabilities pose to the United States and our allies in the region.
The stark reality is that Iran is constantly putting our interests and those of our allies at direct risk. We’ve seen this happen in a wide range of ways: For nearly four decades, Iran has funded Hezbollah, a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans; Iran’s support, along with Russia’s, for the Syrian regime has made that conflict hugely bloody; and Iran’s meddling in Yemen has created one of the worst humanitarian crises of our era. Moreover, Iran’s covert and illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons is precisely why we are now in the current situation.
With the U.S. applying maximum pressure by terminating our sanctions waivers and cutting off Iran’s oil exports, it is not surprising that Iran, in turn, is threatening the nearly one-third of the world’s ocean-shipped oil supply that passes through the Straits of Hormuz. That fact alone makes the White House's decision to deploy U.S. forces to protect this critical artery exactly the right move.
At the same time, we must be ready to deal with two highly likely scenarios.
Rather than directly attacking merchant shipping in the Gulf — which Iran knows would provoke a swift, severe response from the United States — it most likely will revert to asymmetric warfare, using terrorist tactics (including sabotage) and cyber attacks.
When it comes to terrorism, Iran’s resume is long; indeed, during the recent Iraq conflict alone, it is estimated that Iranian proxy terrorists killed or injured one in six allied troops.
While Iran’s cyber efforts are a newer form of asymmetric warfare, it is one that Iran is perfecting. In the last decade, Iran has repeatedly struck the United States and our allies in the cyber domain with relative impunity. From the destructive wiper virus attacks on the Saudi Arabian oil industry in 2012 and again in 2018, to the increasing drumbeat of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on U.S. banks between 2012 and 2013, the destructive attacks targeting the Las Vegas Sands corporation in 2014, the major intrusion campaign targeting U.S. companies and others between 2016 and 2017, and more recent activities targeting the global domain name service infrastructure for manipulation, Iran’s cyber activities have been getting more and more aggressive, with precious little response from the United States.
Our intelligence community has outed Iran a number of times for cyber activities; the Justice Department has indicted various Iranian hackers and their colleagues. And, as recently as this year, the Treasury Department has targeted sanctions against Iranians for conducting malign cyber activities. Yet, the reality is that Iran has not let up and its attacks continue to be relatively successful.
Given the increasing tensions in the region, recent history tells us that Iran almost certainly will wage a low-level war against us and our allies again in cyberspace, and soon. It also is highly likely that these attacks will be serious, and they will seek to exact a very real price on American companies and our people.
There are a number of things that should be done immediately...
Find out what they are by reading the rest of the column at The Hill...
Read more from General Keith Alexander and Jamil Jaffer in The Cipher Brief...
