CNN: The U.S. Accuses Iranian Hackers of Attacking a Dam in New York

U.S. news outlets report that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to charge Iranian hackers with attacking a small dam near New York in 2013. CNN reported on Thursday, March 10, citing a source familiar with the investigation, that the indictment will be presented next week. CNN states that Iranian hackers attacked the control system of the 'Bowman Avenue' dam, located 35 kilometers from New York City, which is a small structure used to control flooding in the area, and that the 'breach of the dam's control system' was not a complex attack. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the matter. In response to CNN's report, Mark Toner, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said: 'It is clear that we take these malicious activities in cyberspace seriously and will use all the tools and resources at our disposal to prevent and counter such actions.' In this context, the Wall Street Journal reported in December of this year regarding this attack: According to a summary of a report from the National Security Agency about this incident that was recently made public, hackers had breached the control system of this dam through a wireless modem. The height of this small concrete dam is about seven meters and it is eight kilometers away from Long Island. The mayor of 'Rye Town,' where this dam is located, told the Wall Street Journal that this facility is actually a small water barrier. According to him, FBI agents visited the site in 2013 and questioned the manager of the computer section of this facility. The report claims that 'the breach of the computer system of this dam occurred simultaneously with Iranian hackers' cyberattacks on American bank websites and appears to have been a reaction to the U.S. intelligence agencies' attack with the Stuxnet malware on Iran's nuclear facility computer systems, which disrupted part of the operations of these facilities for a time.' According to Reuters, Iranian hackers' attacks in 2013 highlighted vulnerabilities in the computer management and control systems of U.S. infrastructure, and the U.S. government took these attacks seriously.