U.S. Department of Homeland Security warns institutions of ongoing Iranian cyber targeting

Washington, July 22 (KUNA) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday warned institutions across the United States of a continuous cyber threat posed by Iranian-linked actors and issued guidance to mitigate the risk. In an alert bulletin, the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) stated that “Iranian-linked cyber actors are exploiting programmable logic controllers (PLCs) within critical U.S. infrastructure.” The agency further warned U.S. institutions of an ongoing cyber targeting campaign by Iranian-linked actors against operational technology devices connected to the internet, including programmable logic controllers. It explained that these cyber operations “have disrupted programmable logic controllers in numerous U.S. critical infrastructure sectors through malicious interactions with project files and data manipulation on the user interface (UI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system screens, resulting in operational disruptions and financial losses.” The bulletin included new guidance on “detecting malicious changes in reusable code modules exploited within programmable logic controller programs.” (End) R.S.R. / R.J.