March 20, 2013, 5:29 PM — Cyberattacks supposedly originating from China have raised alarms in recent weeks, but U.S. businesses and government agencies should worry as much about Iran and North Korea, a group of cybersecurity experts said.
China and Russia have significantly more sophisticated cyberthreat capabilities than do Iran and North Korea, but the two smaller countries are cause for concern in international cybersecurity discussions, the experts told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee Wednesday.
While China and Russia maintain active diplomatic ties with the U.S., which should discourage them from launching major attacks on the U.S., Iran and North Korea may be driven to attack the U.S. out of desperation to maintain their political regimes in the face of global isolation, said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute and co-director of the Cyber Center for National and Economic Security at George Washington University.
Iran still lacks the capabilities of Russia and China, but it has been testing its cyberattack abilities in recent months, Cilluffo said. "The bad news is ... what they lack in capability, they more than make up for in intent," he said. "Whatever [capability] they don't have, they can turn to their proxies or buy or rent."
Iranian attackers can buy botnets that can disrupt U.S. businesses, he told the House Homeland Security Committee's cybersecurity subcommittee. Cybersecurity experts have pinned a series of denial-of-service attacks on U.S. banks early this year, and a 2012 attack on Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Aramco, on Iranian hackers.
North Korea is a "wild card," Cilluffo added. The country is actively seeking cyberattack capabilities, he said.
Hackers in China and Russia are largely focused on espionage and theft, but those two countries have less interest at the moment in damage-causing cyberattacks on the U.S., Cilluffo said. The capabilities of China and Russia make them advanced persistent threats, but "they have some modicum of responsibility and recognize that we can retaliate," he said.
Iran and North Korea are more unpredictable, witnesses at the hearing said. Iran seems to be focusing its cyberattack capabilities on retaliation against the U.S. and Israel if the two countries attempt to shut down its nuclear program, said Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, a think tank. That focus makes Iran "particularly volatile," he said.
