US Department of Justice indicted 9 Iranians against cyber-attacks on many public and private institutions, on March 23. Institutions were targeted worldwide; even United Nations was not spared. This movement will not reduce the number of cyber-attacks in future. International law does not provide provision for self-defense against cyber-attack (only army attack is identified). So it needs to be analyzed if this action by the US is appropriate and real. This is the grey area which international community should consider upon.
Defendants are founders of an organization formed for the purpose of scientific espionage. The organization is named as Mabna which reportedly got the contract from Iran to conduct cyberattack on its behalf. Lots of data were stolen by this organization. It wanted to steal research data and intellectual property information. More than 1 lakh professors and 8000 emails were targeted. Private companies were targeted too using password spraying technique in which hacker gains access to the email account by using default or common passwords. Some say that this action is not going to cause much deterrence. According to them, there should be counter attack as in this case culprits will not be given punishment as they are based in Iran.
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