Iran is hiring Russian hackers and working with other groups in creative ways that make it hard to tell the difference between state and criminal cyber activities This article explores iran stepped cyber. . According to KELA's Cyber Intelligence Center, Iran is using Pay2Key "as a punitive arm of the Iranian state" to attack "high-impact US targets."

Iran's recent actions are part of a bigger plan to use cybercrime techniques as weapons and hire criminal hackers to help them win the war that started with the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28. The cyber intelligence center in Washington, D.C. released a report this week that says the ongoing conflict has "fundamentally shifted the threat landscape" and that Iran has purposefully blurred the lines.

The report also said that Iran has stepped up its cyber attacks a lot since the war started, which is something it is better at than its enemies. The report says, "The same state apparatus that supports purely destructive or hacktivist campaigns is deeply intertwined with the cybercriminal underground." This change in the way things work also means that defenders now have to think about financial, operational, and geopolitical risk all at once.

KELA says that some common defensive actions that should be taken are patching and monitoring edge devices, using MFA that is resistant to phishing, and keeping offline backups and being ready to respond to incidents. The report also says that IT and operational technology (OT) systems should be separated and access controls should be made stronger to protect against threats that are getting more complex from Iranian-backed groups.

The report said that keeping an eye on threat intelligence can also greatly improve an organization's ability to see adversary infrastructure and compromised credential markets. The cyber-security group KELa put it out on Tuesday. If you need private help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.