Social engineering continues to be a core component of the Iranian government’s hacking operations, according to researchers at Recorded Future.
“Research on the Iranian government’s strategic and tactical approaches to the offensive and defensive ‘Soft War’...suggests that social engineering is an indispensable element of the government’s cyber capabilities, which it has relied on for at least a decade,” the researchers write. “Tehran views the ability for a foreign power to incite domestic upheaval as being as dangerous as a military attack on its territory. Equally so, the ability to foment social unrest internationally is a capability at its disposal to attack its perceived enemies. Understanding and dissecting foreign societies, languages, cultures, and political systems has enabled Tehran to leverage social engineering in ways comparable to Russian threat activity groups.”
Recorded Future notes that many of the Iranian government’s hacking skills were learned and enhanced by participation in hacking forums.
“The growth of Iranian social engineering can be traced to Iranian hacker forums, with many including sub-threads on the techniques necessary to target unsuspecting victims,” the researchers write. “Some of the earliest examples include the ‘Simorgh Security Team,’ among the first to differentiate social engineering from other hacking disciplines. Members of that group claimed that a social engineer must be persuasive, articulate, and possess strong analytical and intelligence gathering skills.”
The researchers add that Iranian hackers have a good grasp of their targets’ cultures and languages, which allows them to craft more convincing social engineering attacks.
“Operationally, Iranian social engineering depicts a strong emphasis on the use of foreign languages and cultures to execute defensive and offensive campaigns against domestic foes, such as anti-revolutionary fronts like the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization (MEK) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and nations which Iran perceives to be its adversaries: the US, the UK, Israel, and Saudi Arabia,” the researchers write. “Pro-government operators understand adversarial societies and cultures well enough to mimic them; this capability manifests, whether successful or not, in information operations, psyops, and cyber intrusions.”
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