DAYTON — As the Iranians have already retaliated against the United States and Israeli-led strikes, cybersecurity professionals say that could go beyond traditional warfare.
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“I think that our anticipation should be that Iran will try to probably launch some cyber-attacks likely against infrastructure,” Grant Neeley said.
Neeley is the Director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Data Intelligence at the University of Dayton.
News Center 7’s John Bedell heard similar insight from Luke Connolly, a ransomware threat intelligence analyst, about a possible Iranian response.
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“And that might be power, water, communications. There might be attacks on financial institutions. Certainly, it’s reasonable to expect that there may be attacks on government operations and military operations,” Connolly said.
As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, both men said there could be a different set of concerns for individuals.
Neeley said there could be bad actors, not necessarily Iran or its proxies, but ransomware criminals who might exploit the sense of urgency created by the conflict.
“The normal attacks that we hear about, but maybe couched a little differently and praying on the fear that some people might have about if the war gets larger and what things might be at risk,” Neeley said.
News Center 7’s John Bedell asked both cybersecurity experts about things people can do to protect their devices, information, and money.
“Take a minute and slow down and don’t just click that link,” Neeley said.
“You’d want to be wary of anything coming in, in the form of email or text that looks somewhat suspect. And for businesses, look for any unusual activity on their computers or on their networks that may indicate there has been a breach of some sort,” Connolly said.
“Think about it and be mindful about whether or not you should be receiving a text or an email message from some place that you don’t even have an account for,” Neeley added.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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