Iran's hackers are coordinating more closely, Israel's top cyberdefense official says

Iranian state-aligned cyber groups have become more organized and coordinated, increasingly sharing cyber tools and collaborating with one another. Artificial intelligence is being used to polish disinformation and recruitment messages, improving their quality compared with earlier campaigns that were written in very poor Hebrew. During the war with Iran, Iranian operations sent hundreds of thousands of text messages to Israelis as part of deception and influence efforts, including claims that bomb shelters were closed and messages aimed at recruiting people for intelligence sharing. Israel’s cyberdefense director says Israel is seeking controlled access to powerful AI models so governments can use similar capabilities. Iranian hacking activity fluctuates with the intensity of conflict, often decreasing when bombing campaigns intensify.

"Iranian state-aligned groups are further sharing cyber tools among each other and using AI to polish disinformation and recruitment messages."

"In the last year, Iran's state-backed hacking units have increasingly "begun to talk to each other, and then collaborate with each other, and then even sometimes exchange information" among themselves, he said. "Of course, when they work together, they can work more efficiently and better.""

"During the recent war, Iran has sent hundreds of thousands of text messages to Israelis as part of a deception and influence campaign, he said. "In some cases, they'd send messages like, 'don't go to the bomb shelters because they are closed,'" Karadi said, adding that other messages sought to recruit Israelis for intelligence-sharing."

"For a while, those messaging campaigns were in "very bad Hebrew, so you understand, 'okay, it's nonsense,'" Karadi said. But more recently, AI has helped Tehran improve message quality. In March, Israel said it bombed a key Iranian cyberwarfare operation center."

Read at Nextgov.com