A report released on Thursday by a U.S. based cyber security company suggests that cyber espionage by the Iranian regime was first detected in August 2012.
According to the report by Mandiant the attacks that targeted two Gulf energy companies destroyed data on tens of thousands of computers.
Hackers in Iran have since begun to attack western energy firms and government agencies in a manner “consistent with network reconnaissance”, said Laura Galante, from Mandiant, who is a former US government cyber specialist.
Mandiant said compared to attacks from more sophisticated adversaries such as China the recent attacks from Iran against the west had been relatively simple. On average, the Iranian hackers managed to penetrate Western company or government systems and remain undetected for 28 days, whereas sophisticated Chinese government groups had been able to remain hidden for an average 243 days.
