What role has cyber warfare played in Iran?

What role has cyber warfare played in Iran? 3 days ago Share Save Joe Tidy Cyber correspondent, BBC World Service Share Save Josef Cole, ALSSA When it comes to military firepower, the US and Israel are not shy about how they are attacking Iran. With professional photos and slick videos, US Central Command has been posting every few hours on social media about the kinds of weapons, jets and ships being used. But the US and Israel are far more coy on what is happening in cyber-space. Over hours of press conferences, speeches and dozens of social media posts, mentions of cyber operations are vanishingly rare. However, Iranian hackers have claimed their first prominent cyber-attack on a US company during the conflict, on US medical tech firm, Stryker. And cyber is indeed playing a significant role in this war, as commander of the US Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper recently hinted in a press update. "We continue with strikes into Iran from seabed to space and cyber-space," he said. Here is what we know about the types of cyber operations being carried out - and what it tells us about modern warfare. Before missiles were fired Cyber-espionage and hacking are known to play a large role in so-called "pre-positioning" for war. General Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon, described in a press conference how the war was enabled by months, in some cases years, of planning that went into preparing the so called "target set" for strikes. US and Israeli hackers could have infiltrated key computer networks in Iran long before any actual strike was planned. Computer networks behind air defences or military communications would have been high-priority targets. The Financial Times was told by unnamed sources that CCTV and traffic cameras had been hacked by Israel to create an enormous surveillance network, in order to establish so called "patterns of life" of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his commanders in preparation for the strike that killed him. Internet-connected cameras have become a target in cyber warfare as they "offer real‑time situational awareness of streets, facilities, and movement at very low cost," said Sergey Shykevich, threat intelligence expert at cyber-security company Check Point. Commentators say this kind of information would be used alongside more traditional intelligence - such as that gathered from human spies. "Cyber isn't usually the decisive weapon on its own; it's a force multiplier that helps shape the information environment and supports operations happening on the ground," said Tal Kollender, former Israeli military cyber-defence specialist and founder of cybersecurity platform Remedio. Getty Images General Dan Caine is one of the highest-ranking figures in the US military In a press conference given after the initial strikes, operatives in US Cyber Command and US Space Command were described by Gen Caine as the "first movers", disrupting and "blinding Iran's ability to see, communicate a

Originally reported by BBC Technology. Published on ABN12.