The European Union warned Monday that Iran will likely expand its cyber espionage activities as its relations with Western powers worsen.
“Newly imposed sanctions on Iran are likely to push the country to intensify state-sponsored cyber threat activities in pursuit of its geopolitical and strategic objectives at a regional level,” the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) said in a report.
The warning came days after the EU imposed its first sanctions on Iran since world powers agreed a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, in a reaction to Iran’s ballistic missile tests and assassination plots on European soil.
ENISA lists state-sponsored hackers as among the highest threats to the bloc’s digital security.
It said that China, Russia and Iran are “the three most capable and active cyber actors tied to economic espionage”.
When Washington imposed sanctions on several Iranians in March 2018 for hacking on behalf of the Iranian government, Iran’s foreign ministry denounced the move as “provocative, illegitimate, and without any justifiable reason”.
In November the United States indicted two Iranians for launching a major cyber attack using ransomware known as “SamSam” and sanctioned two others for helping exchange the ransom payments from Bitcoin digital currency into rials.
Cyber activities are expected to increase in coming months, particularly if Iran fails to keep the EU committed to the nuclear deal, ENISA said.
