Stefan Mileschin

Oliver's army is on its way

New research from Recorded Future has found that Iran is recruiting cyber mercenaries from online security forums to staff suddenly launched hacking campaigns.

The report comes a day after security experts expressed fears Iran may retaliate against the United States for withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. Recorded Future officials said if emergency hiring leads Tehran to hire amateurs, they may be less amenable to government control.

Recorded Future based its conclusions on discussions with a well placed source in the Iranian hacker community and analysis of Iranian security forums. Iran operates a tiered system for cyber attacks, where government employees choose targets and contract private firms, including universities acting as contractors, to do the dirty work.

There are 50 or so private firms acting as contractors. Recorded Future identifies two attacks that required this kind of immediate influx of talent:

DDoS attacks against the financial sector between 2012 and 2014: Distributed denial of service attacks overwhelm victims' computers with internet traffic. These attacks were a rapid response to U.S. sanctions and cyber attacks against Iran's nuclear programme that were widely attributed to the US and Israel.

In 2013 there was a destructive attack against the Sands Casino. This was in response to Sheldon Adelson suggesting the US launch a nuclear assault against Iran.

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