Saudi foreign minister calls Iran most dangerous nation for cyber
attacks
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The most dangerous nation for cyber threats is Iran, Saudi Foreign Minister
Adel Al-Jubeir told CNBC on Sunday.
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"The most dangerous nation behind cyber attacks? Iran," Al-Jubeir
said.
Natasha Turak | Hadley Gamble
Published 4 Hours Ago Updated 3 Hours
AgoCNBC.com
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir attends a
press conference with US Secretary of State in Riyadh on October 22, 2017.
The most dangerous nation for cyber threats is
Iran, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told CNBC on Sunday, saying that
the country had been attacked "repeatedly" by its adversary.
Asked who he believed was the most dangerous
nation in terms of cyber attacks and Al-Jubeir was unequivocal.
"The most dangerous nation behind cyber
attacks? Iran," Al-Jubeir said.
"Iran is the only country that has attacked
us repeatedly and tried to attack us repeatedly. In fact they tried to do it on
a virtually weekly basis."
Speaking at the sidelines of the Munich Security
Conference, the foreign minister repeatedly criticized Iran for what he called
"mischievous behavior" in the region, with particular reference to
its support for Shia militant group Hezbollah, which holds influence in Lebanon
and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The Sunni monarchy's interests have for decades
been diametrically opposed to Iran's, but the past year has seen tensions
escalate against a backdrop of proxy conflicts in Yemen and Syria.
Given the mounting animosity between the Sunni
monarchy and the Shia Islamic republic, Al-Jubeir's statement is perhaps not
surprising. CNBC contacted the Iranian government for a response to Al-Jubeir's
comments but has yet to receive a reply.
Al-Jubeir said his country was taking steps to
combat the perceived cyber threat from Iran.
"We are taking all the steps necessary to
provide defenses for our data banks and for our internet and so forth. And we
are also taking steps necessary to train our own people in order to be able to
engage in offensive operations to make it hopefully impossible for people to
penetrate those systems," he said.
Cyber experts have also pointed to what they see
as the country's seemingly increasingly sophisticated cyber-espionage
capabilities.
Last September, the U.S. Treasury Department
added two Iran-based hacking networks and eight individuals to a U.S. sanctions
list, accusing them of taking part in cyber-enabled attacks on the U.S.
financial system in 2012 and 2013, Reuters reported. Iran denied any
role in the cyber attacks although it has also been linked to cyber
attacks closer to home too.
Hackers believed to be linked to the Iranian
government attacked Saudi state oil giant Aramco in 2012, successfully wiping
30,000 computers and paralyzing operations.
In addition, security experts have traced a
number of subsequent attacks back to Iran, including hacks on Saudi and Western
aerospace and petrochemical companies. Cyber security firm FireEye has said it
detected coding containing Farsi references in the malware that hackers left
behind.
Ever since the Stuxnet virus that destroyed the
equipment controlled by computers in Iran's Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility
in 2011, Iran's cyber capabilities are said to have developed at an incredibly
fast pace.
FireEye in September 2017 named a hacker group it
believed was behind recent attacks on Saudi, U.S. and South Korean aviation and
oil firms as "APT33" and said it was gearing up for attacks that
might cripple entire computer networks. "Iranian fingerprints are all over
this campaign, and government fingerprints in particular," FireEye's
director of cyber espionage analysis was quoted as telling Reuters.
Iran neither confirmed nor denied accusations
that it was behind the attacks.
Cyber security has been a major focus of the
Munich Security Conference, which has brought together more than 450 senior
decision makers and heads of state to discuss current and future threats to
international stability.
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