The U.S. military has intercepted a cyberattack launched by Iranian hackers.
The cyberattack targeted a website that showed preliminary results in the 2020 presidential elections.
- According to U.S. authorities, the cyberattack couldn't have affected the 2020 U.S. election results but could have manipulated the website so that it would look like the results had been tampered with.
- Cyber Command, the military's cybersecurity unit, tracked the Iranian hacking campaign during its activity in a cyber mission.
- Upon launching the mission, the U.S. Army was able to track suspicious activity on a U.S. municipality website.
- The U.S. military then executed a cyber operation to kick the Iranians off that network so that they wouldn't be able to use their access in future elections.
- The affected U.S. city network has not been named.
- Iranian hackers have consistently targeted both public and private U.S. organizations. In 2022, government-backed Iranian threat actors breached a federal agency that failed to patch against Log4Shell.
- In late 2022, the U.S. DOJ indicted three Iranian individuals for launching cyberattacks against the U.S.