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US to announce charges in dam cyberattack

The Justice Department unsealed an indictment against seven Iranians and described them as experienced computer hackers. The attacks primarily consisted of distributed denial-of-service attacks, a method whereby websites and networks are overloaded with traffic and forced offline, on 46 financial institutions (including JP Morgan and Wells Fargo) over 176 days between late 2011 and mid-2013.

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Justice Department officials released the indictment at a news conference in Washington in what is one of the highest-profile USA indictments against a foreign nation on hacking charges. The alleged attack against the dam by Iranians could have been a clear and present danger to Americans, she said. The dam incident was already publicized, though officials conceded that the hackers in that case had no control over the dam, and couldn’t have actually done anything even if they did.

All seven worked for Iranian computer companies that did work on behalf of the Iranian government, the USA said.

The Justice Department declined to comment. No details were made public of any retaliation. At a conference earlier this month, National Security Agency director and US Cyber Command commander Michael Rogers said it was “when, not if” that another country would attempt a cyber-attack on US infrastructure, much like the one seen in Ukraine in December that caused a blackout leaving 225,000 customers without power. At the same time, the Obama administration has shown a willingness to confront Tehran for bad behavior. The U.S. has publicly attributed cyber attacks on large U.S. industrial companies to Chinese military hackers and to North Korea for the Sony Pictures Entertainment.

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Some experts have said the United States is less well-equipped to respond to a major infrastructure attack because systems are more connected and reliant on the Internet. In 2010, the USA and Israel sabotaged Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program by infecting their computer systems with the Stuxnet virus.

Exclusive: US to charge Iran in cyber attacks against banks, New York dam – sources