Iran-linked cyber operations are drawing renewed attention for relying less on advanced code and more on human manipulation to gain access to sensitive systems.
At the centre of this activity is Charming Kitten, a group associated with Iran’s security apparatus which has spent years targeting officials, researchers, and corporate employees. Instead of exploiting technical vulnerabilities, operatives frequently impersonate trusted contacts, using carefully crafted messages to trick victims into revealing credentials or installing malicious software.
Read more…
Source: TechRadar News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Researchers find cyber-sabotage malware that may predate Stuxnet by five years
April 24, 2026
Infosec outfit SentinelOne found malware that tries to induce errors in engineering and physics simulation software and therefore represents an attempt at sabotage, and suggests it was created years before the Stuxnet worm that aimed to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges. The company’s Vitaly Kamluk discussed the malware in a talk at the Black Hat Asia ...
- Iran claims US used backdoors to knock out networking equipment during war
April 21, 2026
Iranian media is claiming that the US used backdoors and/or botnets to disable networking equipment during the current war, and Chinese state media is dining out on the allegations. Reports from Iran claim hardware made by Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, and MikroTik either rebooted or disconnected during recent attacks on Iran – despite the regime disconnecting the ...
- Iranian-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit Programmable Logic Controllers Across US Critical Infrastructure
April 7, 2026
Iran-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are conducting exploitation activity targeting internet-facing operational technology (OT) devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley. This activity has led to PLC disruptions across several U.S. critical infrastructure sectors through malicious interactions with the project file and manipulation of data on human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory ...
- Iranian “Charming Kitten” hackers used old Cold War methods to steal tech secrets and plant malware
April 5, 2026
Iran-linked cyber operations are drawing renewed attention for relying less on advanced code and more on human manipulation to gain access to sensitive systems. At the centre of this activity is Charming Kitten, a group associated with Iran’s security apparatus which has spent years targeting officials, researchers, and corporate employees. Instead of exploiting technical vulnerabilities, operatives ...
- Iran targets M365 accounts with password-spraying attacks
March 31, 2026
Suspected Iran-linked threat actors are conducting password-spraying attacks against hundreds of organizations, primarily Middle Eastern municipalities, in campaigns that security researchers believe may have been aimed at supporting bomb-damage assessment following missile strikes. Tel Aviv-based Check Point Research on Tuesday said that the attackers used multiple source IP addresses to target numerous Microsoft 365 accounts, affecting ...
- Iran threatens to start attacking major US tech firms on April 1
March 31, 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned Tuesday that it plans to begin attacking more than a dozen American companies across the Middle East on Wednesday in retaliation for the killing of Iranian citizens in the ongoing war with the US and Israel. The list of companies includes Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Tesla, and Boeing, which ...