Wall Street Journal: Cyber Attack by IRGC on US State Department

The American newspaper Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, November 4, that the email and personal pages of several officials in the US State Department have been hacked by the cyber forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in recent weeks. The Wall Street Journal mentioned that among those targeted by the IRGC's attack were employees in the Iran Affairs and Near East Affairs sections of the State Department. In addition to these individuals, several journalists and academics have also been targeted by these attacks. The newspaper reported, citing unnamed officials from the Barack Obama administration, that these cyber attacks are linked to the arrest of Siamak Namazi in Tehran. Earlier this month, informed sources confirmed to Radio Farda the arrest of Mr. Namazi, an Iranian-American director of strategic planning at Crescent Oil Company, in Tehran. Mr. Namazi was arrested about two weeks before the publication of this news; however, Iranian officials have not yet confirmed or denied his arrest. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing 'American officials,' since the arrest of Siamak Namazi in Iran, the frequency of cyber attacks by the IRGC, which has a long history, has increased. Friends and colleagues of Mr. Namazi told the newspaper that IRGC intelligence agents searched his home at the time of his arrest and took his personal computer with them. Now, the concern of Mr. Namazi's 'supporters,' according to the newspaper, is that the IRGC may seek to open a spy case against him. This is an event that also happened to Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American journalist for the Washington Post: According to the Wall Street Journal, in the days following the arrest of the third Iranian-American who has been imprisoned in Iran, Iranian security forces attempted to contact others using his and his wife's accounts. The Iranian government's office at the United Nations reacted to the Wall Street Journal's report by declaring itself innocent and a 'target of many cyber attacks,' while the Obama administration also stated that it is still investigating the matter. However, the report from this newspaper comes at a time when the Iranian market for arrests and accusations by the IRGC is hot. The IRGC's intelligence organization announced on Tuesday, November 3, in a statement that it had arrested 'several members of a network collaborating with hostile Western governments that were active in cyberspace and the country's press' and claimed that the arrested individuals were affiliated with 'the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom.' Recently, several journalists in Iran, including Eisa Saharkhiz, a reformist journalist, and Ehsan Mazandarani, the editor-in-chief of Farhikhtegan newspaper, have been arrested, but no official has yet clarified the connection of these arrests with the 'infiltration network' claimed by the IRGC. However, these arrests and accusations coincide with repeated warnings from Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and several senior security and military officials in Iran who constantly warn about the United States' efforts to 'infiltrate' Iran.