Read on Twitter
Thread: The appeal of cyber warfare is its low cost/high impact. What appears a simple operation, plausibly carried out by a few tech-savvy students on behalf of Iran's regime, has now consumed the time of senior US officials and made national headlines. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/20/proud-boys-emails-florida/
2. Russia's 2016 hack against Democratic party officials--using simple spearphishing emails--proved that technically unsophisticated operations can have a profound political impact, and are often difficult to prove. It's often due to *our* negligence more than *their* evil genius
3. Iran impersonated the Proud Boys and sent emails to registered Democratic voters in at least 4 states, saying “You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you." It's not clear, however, whether they even needed to hack anyone to obtain this voter data.
4. Iran's security services have become adept at impersonating others to prey upon their victims. They pretend to be well-known journalists and human rights activists in order to attack other well-known journalists and rights activists. They've now exported this tactic to the US.
5. In contrast to Russia--which prefers Trump to Biden--Iran is not interested in helping the reelection of the US president who killed their beloved General Qassem Soleimani. Like Russia, Iran has an interest in sowing US societal discord.
6. Cybersecurity is an important but intimidating topic for many of us. For an in-depth analysis--in accessible language--on Iranian cyber operations here's a @CarnegieEndow report authored by @CDA and myself. https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/01/04/iran-s-cyber-threat-espionage-sabotage-and-revenge-pub-75134
7. Demystifying Iran's "Cyber Armies": They're often just a few "average hackers", motivated by money more than ideology: “Some have Instagram accounts which show they are smoking pot or watch a lot of pornography." Insightful 2018 intvw w THE expert, @CDA https://iranwire.com/en/features/5080
