It’s easy to lose track of news elsewhere when every day brings new dramatic headlines here n the U.S., but there have been cyberattacks of note in both Iran and Lithuania this week. Both attacks have been attributed to politically motivated groups, although the attributions have not yet been confirmed: a group calling itself “Gonjeshke Darande” claimed responsibility for the Iranian attack, while “Killnet” reportedly claimed responsibility for the Lithuanian attack.
Isabel Debre reports on the Iranian incident:
One of Iran’s major steel companies said Monday it was forced to halt production after being hit by a cyberattack that also targeted two other plants, apparently marking one of the biggest such assaults on the country’s strategic industrial sector in recent memory.
The Iranian government did not acknowledge the disruption or blame any specific group for the assault on the state-owned Khuzestan Steel Co. and Iran’s two other major steel producers, which constitutes just the latest example of an attack crippling the country’s services in recent months amid heightened tensions in the region.
Read more at ABC.
In the second situation, AP reports:
A cyberattack temporarily knocked out public and private websites in Lithuania, the country’s Defense Minister said Monday, with a pro-Moscow hacker group reportedly claiming responsibility.
A distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) attack targeted a secure national data network. The State Tax Inspectorate and Migration Department were also among the public agencies forced to suspend online services for several hours. They came online again later the same day.
Read more at ABC.