Cyberattack on Greek Navy officers

The attack was carried out by the Iranian hacker group called "Charming Kitten" 

During the last few months, it was discovered that an Iranian hacker group attacked many officers from the Greek Navy. The goal of the attack was to breach the email and social media accounts of the officers.

The attack was carried out by a group of Iranian hackers called "Charming Kitten" or APT-35. The Iranian attack group is well-known in the world and has an infamous reputation. In the past, cyberattacks against US soldiers and military infrastructure as well as American scientists and nuclear infrastructure have been attributed to the group. 

The Iranian attack group succeeded in breaching a large number of personal accounts and leaking personal details, documents, pictures and videos, lists of telephone numbers and addresses from the accounts, bank account details, credit card numbers and more. The attack was discovered by a team of IBM researchers who exposed videos in which the Iranian hackers are shown carrying out the attack on the Greek Navy officers.   

It is not clear what motivated the Iranian attack group and why officers from the Navy of Greece in particular were attacked. The staff of IBM researchers did not report whether data was collected and used (for criminal or intelligence purposes) during the many cyberattacks of the Iranian group, or whether the Iranian hackers also succeeded in planting malware in the officers' computers or in the computer networks of the Greek Navy.     

The cyberattack, perhaps for the first time publicly, raised misgivings and great concern among senior members of the military and the defense establishment in Greece over the capabilities to defend computer and data networks of the defense establishment. In this period of high tension in the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, it is possible that the Iranians acted in cooperation with the Turks and carried out the cyberattack for them, in light of the limited capabilities of the Turks in this field.

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