When it comes to sophisticated international hacking, the US, Russia and China take the prize right? Not so fast. There’s a hacking group in the Middle East that’s causing concern everywhere.
A group called the Yemen Cyber Army hacked a Saudi Arabian news website called Al Hayet. Not only did they infiltrate, they threatened Saudi Arabia over the continued violence and unrest in Yemen. That was back in April, and Yemen Cyber Army has gotten stronger ever since. On May 20, they used Twitter accounts to hack the Saudi foreign ministry. The next day, Iran’s state run news blamed Yemen Cyber Army for this attack, which led to the leak of foreign ministry employees’ personal information. Now, Wikileaks is announcing the release of around a million records from the Saudi foreign ministry. Wikileaks didn’t say the exposed documents were given to them by Yemen Cyber Army. But Wikileaks did credit them for breaching the Saudi Foreign Ministry. This cyber group has no spokesperson. It’s not verified they’re even based in Yemen. Some of them claim to be from Yemen. But yet they won’t speak Arabic or give away their location. In fact, an Israeli cyber security group called ClearSky believes Iran’s government is behind the group. They discovered malware deployed against 550 different targets throughout the Middle East. Half of those targets are against Saudi Arabia.
Whether the Yemen Cyber Army is made up of Yemen or Iranian hackers, or both, one thing should be clear. Cyber conflicts around the world show no signs of slowing down. In fact, I expect them to only intensify. Unfortunately, the Internet seems to be a new way for individuals, corporations, and whole nations to attack and attempt to destroy each other. Obviously, there’s a lot of good the Internet does. In fact, there’s more good than harm. But ClearSky has a valid point. With all the turmoil in Yemen, I’m convinced the Yemen Cyber Army is getting a lot of help from outside Yemen, though I do believe some are from Yemen. Iran is just one of the nations helping them. Are there others?