Did the US know Iran was hacking American institutions while negotiating the nuclear deal? US flag. Illustrative. By Joshua Spurlock
Hackers on a mission from the Iranian government hacked into the back office systems of a New York dam and were cyber-probing American financial institutions roughly two years ago—just as the Iranian government was negotiating a nuclear deal with the US and other world powers. The report from CNN on the situation further said that the US is planning to publicly “name and shame” Iran for the cyber attacks. It also noted the US didn’t take much time to determine that Iran was behind the hacks.
CNN further reported that the US is escalating their efforts to counter Iran in the cyber world, where the Islamic Republic’s activities are growing. While the dam cyber incident didn’t touch the operational systems—which could have led to a cyber-terror attack—the situation nonetheless raised concerns.
The CNN report comes amidst reports of Iranian missile tests, with the US getting grilled by reporters on their response to the military maneuvers. A press release from the US State Department had US Spokesman Mark Toner getting asked repeatedly about the tests on Thursday.
He argued that the US still can take steps against those actions even if they don’t violate the nuclear accord, which doesn’t include the missile tests.
“We’re not under any illusions that just because we have the [nuclear deal] in place that Iran is going to suddenly stop some of the other disruptive or destabilizing activities that they’ve continued to carry out for years in the region,” Toner was quoted in the press release as saying. “All I can say is that we—the United States, but also through the UN Security Council—will continue to hold them accountable for these actions once we can prove that, in fact, they took place.”
Now, as it turns out, Iran was engaging in such activities during the negotiations for that nuclear deal. And the Americans may very well have known about it during those talks. A deal was reached last year regardless.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, March 10, 2016)