Russia Suspected of Helping Iran Develop Its Cyber Capabilities, Lawmakers Hear

  • 8 March 2014
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In a hearing on Iran’s support for terrorism worldwide before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, Pete Hoekstra revealed the fact that Russia was suspected of helping Iran develop its cyber capabilities.
Hoekstra, the former chairman of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has revealed that Iran’s cyber powers are ranked “closely behind” the ones of major players such as the US, Russia, China and Israel.
“As with many of its capabilities, Iran is not afraid to use them once they have them,” Hoekstra told lawmakers.
The official has also cited the Iranian Fars News Agency’s report about the country’s Armed forces being equipped with advanced technologies for the eventuality of cyber warfare.
Furthermore, Hoekstra has pointed to the relationship between Russia and Iran. He says it’s not surprising that the two are cooperating in the security sphere since both of them regard the US as a primary target.
“More relevant to today’s hearing is that Russia is largely suspected of helping Iran to develop its advanced cyber capability. Both Russia and Iran are reportedly providing arms to the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime as it builds up its death toll in the country’s civil war,” Hoekstra said.
In the past, the US often accused Iran of being behind cyberattacks. Many officials believe that the distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks launched against US financial institutions for many months by a hacktivist group called ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters were actually the work of Iran.
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The following article is a update on Russia Development Capabilities.
 

(Is Russia on the verge of creating its own controlled, closed internet?}

 
By Mark Wilson Posted on July 6 2014
 


 
The idea of a closed internet is hardly new; turn your eyes to East Asia, and the Great Firewall of China looms large. The Chinese government is well known for the control it likes to exert over the levels of access its citizens have to the internet, and there have been numerous well-publicized cases of censorship and access being restricted to pages that refer to certain events in the county's history. The country is highly defensive of its image, and goes to great lengths to fight off western influence -- including going as far as banning Windows 8 on government computers lest machines furnished with Microsoft's most recent operating system be used for spying on the People's Republic of China. Now it looks as though Russia could be going down a similar route.
Russian parliament has just passed a law that requires internet companies to store data about Russian citizens within the county's boundaries. The move can be viewed in a couple of ways. It is no secret that the Russian government, and Vladimir Putin in particular, is no fan of social media -- social networks were used by Russians to voice their disapproval at Putin's activities. It is thought that the move to contain citizen's data without Russia is a bid to create a Russian version of China's closed internet.
 
betanews/ Full Read Here/ http://betanews.com/2014/07/05/is-russia-on-the-verge-of-creating-its-own-controlled-closed-internet/
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Interesting that as it would very much follow what China are believed to be trying to do, and which North Korea has already no doubt done...but no one outside the country knows about it.
 
A little while back India was flirting with producing it own national rival OS to stop the dependency on MS...so all of this is a move towards insularism...brought about by the revalations on just how leaky IT can be in terms of compromisingthe national interest.
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Very interesting point you made Baldrick on this article................its a race for sure with these countries trying to out do each other..............its a "cold war of computer technology " in a true sense of the world.......when does it stop????
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Well, Antus67, judging from the article you posted on the North Korean cyber warefare division...iti s headed in the wrong, and very worrying, direction...given the potential infrastructure targets that these malevolent people obviously have in their overall portfolio. :(
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Good morning gents.  Good article and good discussion! 
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Good morning, David...and cheers for that.  It is something that could affect us all given our dependency on infrastructure and how dependent that now is on IT and the Web.

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