Iran Cyber War
As the Internet grows each day in usefulness in the most different areas of expertise, at some point it could be used to take part in war. Iran is now recruiting hackers to fight for the country’s best interest, as it has already been ‘attacked’ last year through the cyberspace by the USA. The hackers recruited will be paid for their work.
Reasons to create a cyber army
Considering that nowadays many security systems are controlled by computer programs and that all sorts of confidential information on a country’s operations and plans are stored on virtual data, the damage a hacker can cause might be just as preoccupying as a physical encounter. The difference is that civilians don’t get caught in the mess.
A former member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Reza Kahlili, said “Cyber warfare is cheap, effective and doesn’t necessarily cause fatalities. It makes much more sense for not-so-wealthy nation states to build up cyber warfare capability rather than investing in missiles and warships.” Also, he said that the country has to take advantage of the young believers in Iran who are “highly educated and very savvy with computers”.
Why Iran wants to strike back
The attack that Iran suffered by hackers damaged its Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. A computer worm managed to be infiltrated into the Iranian computers and compromised a nuclear program which was considered controversial by other nations. The acting commander of the Basij, Gen. Ali Fazli, said “As there are cyber attacks on us, so is our cyber army of the Basij, which includes university instructors and students, as well as clerics, attacking websites of the enemy”.
International authorities believe that Iran was attacked because other nations, such as Israel and the USA, doubt that their research is for developing nuclear power. Because of these accusations, Iran is under investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency to discover if what they’re really producing aren’t atomic weapons. On the other hand, Iran accused the oppositions to be responsible for a nuclear scientist’s death.