Iran is on a hacking spree. The reason why may be ominous.

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is accelerating efforts to hack into the accounts of U.S. and Western leaders, academics, and journalists focused on nuclear strategy and the Middle East — possibly as part of an effort to track former American officials Tehran has threatened to assassinate.

The attacks, described by the California security firm Proofpoint and a number of former U.S. officials suspected of being targets, have been carried out by the IRGC-affiliated hacking group Charming Kitten, and are seen as backing Tehran in its escalating standoff with the U.S. and Europe over Iran’s nuclear program and military support for Russia in the Ukraine war.

Joshua Miller, a Proofpoint senior threat researcher, and these former U.S. officials told Semafor that the IRGC is seeking to better understand and predict Western decision-making and diplomacy aimed at constraining Iran’s nuclear program. The Biden administration has said it’s prepared to resume formal talks, although Israel has said it’s willing to use military force to destroy Iranian nuclear sites.

But whereas earlier Iranian hacking efforts were mostly aimed at gathering intelligence and espionage, Miller says there’s evidence that Charming Kitten’s efforts are now also designed to support the IRGC’s global terrorism operations, including kidnapping and assassinations.

Iran has publicly vowed to kill a number of Trump-era officials — including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and one-time National Security Advisor John Bolton — whom it blames for the 2020 drone strike that killed Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s international operations. The Department of Justice indicted IRGC leaders last year for an alleged plot to kill Bolton in Washington.

Miller told Semafor in an interview Monday that hacking the accounts of former U.S. officials could help the IRGC track their targets.

“Our assessment is that … the surveillance of someone close to your assassination target would make sense from an intelligence planning perspective,” he said. “We’re careful to say that we don’t see definitive proof. But we’ve seen enough that we were willing to publish.”

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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