Documents reveal Iranian plans for cyberattacks on Western targets
Documents detailing the cyber activity of a covert Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unit and obtained by Sky News reveal Iran’s planned targets, with the unit focusing on targets in the United States, Britain and France in particular.
According to a security official quoted in the Sky News report, the information laid out in the 57-pages of documents offers a glimpse into the activities of the Shahid Kaveh unit, including plans to attack shipping.
“They are creating a target bank to be used whenever they see fit,” said the official.
The documents, comprising five reports marked “very confidential,” one dated Nov. 19, 2020, and another dated April 19 the same year, provide detailed information on satellite communications used by the international shipping industry and a computerized system used in smart buildings around the world, according to the report.
Interestingly, most of the pages contain the following quote from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “The Islamic Republic of Iran must become among the world’s most powerful in the area of cyber.”
Six pages in the report pertain to a system for tracking the flow of gasoline at gas stations, with particular focus on an American company by the name of Franklin Fueling Systems, which the report’s authors note “support many customers in Europe, Africa, America, and the Middle East.” The report further notes that an “explosion of these gas pumps is possible if these systems are hacked and controlled remotely.”
The documents also detailed a kind of satellite technology used for maritime communication by the global shipping industry.
Among the targets listed in the report were the headquarters of U.S.-headquartered multinational conglomerate Honeywell, German multinational conglomerate Siemens AG and France-based Schneider Electric Global.
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