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The following is a contributed article by Benny Czarny, CEO and founder of cybersecurity firm OPSWAT.

President Trump's unexpected and controversial decision to kill Qassim Suleimani, an Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was met with immediate speculation about Iran's capacity to strike back. While opinions differed on the retaliatory timeframe and targets, almost all of the talking heads agreed that America's digital assets, especially those powering critical infrastructure, are at severely heightened risk of cyberattack in this post-Suleimani world.

Iran's cyber capabilities are relatively well-known and improved steadily in the latter part of the 2010s. The Center for Strategic and International Studiesexplains that "years of constant engagement with Israeli and Saudi Arabia have improved Iran's cyber capabilities, and experience with covert action gives Iran the ability to conceptualize how cyberattacks fit into the larger military picture."

A big part of the Iranian cybersecurity threat is its strategic prioritization of high risk, high reward critical infrastructure targets essential to the American way of life. In fact, a new report by Wired revealed that a hacking groupaffiliated with Iran and its proxies has been probing American electric utilities for the past year.

While security analysts don't believe that Magnallium, the identified hacking group backed by Iran, has the ability to break down the front door of a grid's control center, it's clear that the reconnaissance needed to eventually do so is underway, and was even before Suleimani's death.

If there's perhaps one mutually agreed upon benefit to come out of the Suleimani killing,it's the heightened dialogue on critical infrastructure cybersecurity. While U.S. power companies are much more secure now then they were a decade ago, vulnerabilities continue to be identified at the same time threats continue to increase in frequency and sophistication.

That's why as we begin this next decade, the energy industry must prioritize cybersecurity training for employees at every level of their organization and embrace a holistic Zero Trust approach that emphasizes prevention strategies over reactive detection methods.

As public and private enterprises look to new cybersecurity solutions to mitigate the risks, global cybersecurity spending is expected to grow to $133.8 billion by 2022,according to International Data Corporation. The White House's 2020 budget alone includes more than$17.4 billion for cybersecurity-related activities, a 5% increase over 2019.

However, we'll need to do more than throw money at the issue.

The problem lies in the fact the energy sector has become an increasingly attractive target both for nation-states like Iran engaged in geopolitical campaigns as well as profit-motivated criminal syndicates. That's largely due to the fact that much of our nation's energy sector is built upon a tangle of legacy industrial control systems that were intentionally designed as closed, 'air-gapped' systems.

But perhaps the greatest vulnerability is the human element. While many energy companies are addressing remote device and network risks, basic security awareness and training often feels like it lags behind.

As we enter the next decade, executive leadership at energy organizations will need to take a hard look at their existing systems, their security practices, and most importantly, their attitudes towards how they approach cybersecurity.

And because threats can now come from anywhere, any piece of connected technology must be treated as potentially malicious. This is the essence of a "Zero Trust" prevention-first mentality one in which trust is never implied and the legitimacy of every file, every device, and every network connection is always questioned.

All employees be they executives, control engineers or accountants must develop a deeper appreciation that any interaction with technology can open a door to a potential cyberattack. It's imperative that CI organizations prioritize cybersecurity training for all employees, emphasizing that every person who interacts with technology also plays an important role in protecting mission critical infrastructure.

To truly prepare for the increasing sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks targeting energy infrastructure, the burden will rest squarely on the shoulders of executive leadership to take the lead in showing that all employees, regardless of their role or responsibility, are aware that any interaction with technology has the potential to unleash the next Stuxnet, or worse.

What comes from the Suleimani killing from both a cyber and physical perspective remains to be seen. But Iran and its proxies aren't the only cyber threats that America's energy sector will face in the decade to come.

To mitigate risk, energy stakeholders must begin to make the mindset shift from detection to prevention, for once an attack on energy is underway, it could be too late to respond.

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The Iranian cybersecurity threat is a good reminder for the energy sector to embrace a prevention mindset - Utility Dive

These are tumultuous times in Tehran. On the evening of Jan. 11, protests broke out in front of two of the most prominent universities in Tehran, after the head of Irans military acknowledged that it accidentally shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752, carrying 176 passengers, including more than a dozen Iranian students living in Canada.

Protesters were furious at the governments three-day delay in announcing what should have been known immediately after the crash. They chanted demands for the resignation of responsible officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is commander in chief of Irans armed forces.

Its been a dizzying turn of events. Just days before the tragedy, the Iranian government was hoping to capitalize on massive crowds at the funeral for General Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corpss Quds Force commander killed in a U.S. drone strike near the Baghdad airport in Iraq on Jan. 3, and the launch of Iranians retaliatory missiles on Jan. 7. Instead, the government again has become the target of widespread criticism for what looks like incompetence and a cover-up over responsibility for the deaths of the airliner passengers. They included young mothers, children and at least two newly-married couples who were returning from holidays in Iran.

Accepting responsibility for this disastrous incident, offering full compensation to victims, and making a commitment to conduct an investigation and hold those responsible accountable all promised in President Hassan Rouhanis Jan. 11 statement are the minimum measures expected from a government in such a situation.

Three days of obfuscation and even threats to journalists who questioned the governments previous narratives, however, is perhaps why so many Iranians doubt the governments sincerity in its apology and pledges. Several Iranian social media users have said they are afraid to think that if the plane passengers did not have foreign nationalities and the international community was not pressuring Iran to come clean, the public never would have been told the actual cause of the crash.

These protests have continued in several other cities and at universities, including in Isfahan for a few days, during which security forces used tear gas and batons to contain and crack down against any attempt to expand the protests. Less than two months ago, security forces brutally repressed protests over an abrupt increase in fuel prices that had spread to more than 100 cities across the country, both in rural areas and on the outskirts of big cities. Video footage from November appears to reveal that the security forces violently targeted protesters who did not pose any imminent threat to life, and authorities have refused to accept responsibility or even publicly account for the total number of people killed.

In other words, over the past two months the government has faced street protests with demands supported by large groups of Iranians. The two waves of protests seem to include different demographics one group connected to university-educated students and the ideals of the urban middle class, and the other largely consisting of working- and lower middle-class communities struggling amid deteriorating economic conditions. Both of these groups, however, say they are calling out the governments indifference to its citizens suffering and the governments total lack of accountability for its systematic wrongdoing.

On Jan. 17 and during the Friday prayer sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei dismissed the criticism protestors had raised. Even if the government manages to silence the voices of those criticizing the government over the airplane catastrophe, it most likely will only exacerbate peoples feelings of being marginalized by their own government. And that feeling would deepen the authorities domestic legitimacy crisis.

In the past two years, U.S. policy toward Iran also has played a negative role in addressing the human rights situation, including by imposing increasingly broad sanctions that harm Iranians right to health care. But it is Irans government that has the key responsibility to protect its citizens rights, and it is the Iranian government that has failed to do so and sowed so much distrust between rulers and the ruled. What the Iranian government needs most in this volatile time is the trust of its own people and it needs to actually commit to a transparent, rights-respecting form of governance.

Theres an expression among Iranians and many other Shia Muslims that the sigh of the innocent will go after the cruel one day. I wonder if any Iranian government officials feel that this sigh from the victims of Irans past repression, including those killed in November, has come back to haunt them.

Tara Sepehri Far is the Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. Follow her on Twitter @sepehrifar.

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Iran's cover-up of plane crash compounded its trouble in the streets | TheHill - The Hill

Tensions between the United States and Iran, boiling after the U.S. killed Gen. Qassem Suleimani on Jan. 3, have now returned to a simmer. Tehrans ineffective response seems calibrated to avoid a damaging reprisal. But Tehrans reluctance to risk further open hostilities suggests that it will return to its old playbook of asymmetric, indirect attacks against the U.S. The sweet spot for Iran is an attack that wounds the U.S. but has enough murkiness around ultimate responsibility that the Trump administration would struggle to justify a vigorous response.

Africa could be the site of such an attempted revenge tour.

Thanks to recenteffortsby its Middle Eastern rivals, Iran has lost some of the influence it began building across Africa almost immediately after the 1979 revolution. Tehrans networks still weave across parts of the continent, however, offering options that it could tap for an attack.

Hezbollah, Tehrans most formidable terrorist proxy, smuggles everything fromdrugs to peoplethrough West Africa. Major Hezbollah funders have business empires stretching intomultiple African countries.

Moreover, Iranian proselytization in countries such asSenegalandSudanhas created Shiite communities which, though usually small, likely contain some devotees willing to take Iranian orders. The founders of an influential, Iranian-backed Shiite organization in northern Nigeria, in fact, hoped to foment in their own country arevolutionlike Irans.

Before Suleimanis death, the Quds Force he headed was reportedly creating new African capabilities for retaliating against the Trump administrations maximum pressure campaign. Suleimani establishedterror cellsdesigned to hit U.S. and other Western targets on the continent.

Suleimanis death could slow this plan, but his successor, Esmail Qaani, reportedlyranthe Quds Forces Africa operations previously, suggesting he could seamlessly continue Suleimanis project. Iran has also used Africa before: Kenyan authorities have arrested Iranians for involvement in two separateterror plotsagainst Israeli targets in Kenya, so operations there would be a return to familiar territory.

Surely, Tehran recognizes that Africa is one of the easiest regions in the world in which to launch a deniable attack. African terrorist groups have proliferated recently, giving Iranplenty of choiceif it seeks a partner to serve as the face of an attack.

Nearly all African terrorists are Sunni and not natural allies for Shiite Iran, yet Tehran and al Qaeda have previouslyembracedecumenicism long enough to cooperate against the great Satan. Iran and Hezbollahhelped al Qaedalaunch the devastating 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and reportedly had links to theIslamic Courts Unionand its successor,al Shabaab, which are both Sunni terrorist organizations from Somalia.

The U.S.'s surveillance and intelligence capabilities are also morethinly stretchedin Africa than in the Middle East, and arumored drawdownof U.S. military personnel in Africa would heighten the challenge of defending against an Iranian plot on a continent three times larger than the Middle East.

There is, as well, a staggering amount of illicit activity in Africa; informal cross-border trade accounts for more than 40% of the continents GDP, for example. This creates enough noise to cloak terrorist undertakings.

The incapacity of many African governments hobbles their ability to disrupt terror activity on their soil; byone measure, 18 of the worlds 25 most fragile states are African. And the great cancer of many African countries,corruption, has already made terrorists jobs far easier there.

Africa has no shortage of potential U.S. targets for an Iranian-backed attack. For instance, thousands of U.S. aid workers operate on the continent, often in remote and insecure areas. In fact, terrorists already frequentlytarget aid workers.

Even the U.S. military presence in Africa has been vulnerable at times, as shown by the recent terrorist attack on a joint U.S.-Kenya military base thatkilled three Americans. Last year, the U.S. had 29 military sites on the continent, though not all of them are manned full time.

The Trump administrations killing of Suleimani has made Iran wary of openly provoking the U.S., but it is not going to abandon four decades of hell-raising now. Tehran may decide that Africa, sprinkled with Iranian networks, burdened with swathes of territory ungoverned by any legitimate authority, and target-rich, is just the right place for a series of deniable, asymmetric attacks against U.S. interests there.

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Where Will Iran Strike Back Against the U.S.? - Heritage.org

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Irans enriched uranium stockpile has far exceeded the level allowed by its international nuclear deal, an aide to Irans nuclear chief said on Saturday.

Ali Asghar Zarean said that Iran has stockpiled 1,200 kilograms, or about 2,600 pounds, which is well beyond what the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers allowed.

Iran is increasing its stockpile of the enriched uranium with full speed, he said. The claim has not been verified by the U.N.s nuclear watchdog.

In November, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Irans stockpile of low-enriched uranium had grown to 372.3 kilograms (821 pounds) as of Nov. 3. The nuclear deal limited the stockpile to 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds).

Iran has routinely vowed to begin enriching its stockpile of uranium to higher levels closer to weapons grade if world powers fail to negotiate new terms for the nuclear accord following the U.S. decision to withdraw from the agreement and restore crippling sanctions. European countries opposed the U.S. withdrawal and have repeatedly urged Iran to abide by the deal.

Meanwhile, Iran is not ruling out negotiations with the United States even after an American drone strike that killed a top Iranian general, the countrys foreign minister said in an interview released Saturday.

Mohammed Javad Zarif told Germanys Der Spiegel magazine that he would never rule out the possibility that people will change their approach and recognize the realities, in an interview conducted Friday in Tehran.

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Iran Says Its Enriched Uranium Stockpile Is Far Beyond Allowed Amount - The New York Times

Irans powerful Guardian Council has purged many Reformists from the ranks of would-be candidates for the fast-approaching parliamentary elections, including many incumbents.

The council, controlled by hard-liners, vets hopefuls in all Iranian elections with the exception of city and village council polls. Its strict qualification procedures for the Feb. 21 vote have seen 90 current legislators sent out of the game, not to mention thousands of first-timers. Council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaee cited "multiple grounds" on which candidates had been rejected, including alleged corruption, embezzlement, drug use or dealingand a bevy of other possible convictions and misconduct.

The widespread purge even prompted President Hassan Rouhani to strike out at the council.

"People favor political pluralism in elections," Rouhani said during a televised Cabinet meeting Jan. 15. "We cannot simply announce that 1,700 candidates have been approved and ignore the question of how many political groups those people represent. That's not what an election is about.

He likened the council to a shop where the owner claims diversity by "offering 2,000 items on his shelves, but all [are] the same commodity.

The 12-member council includes six senior clerics appointed by the country's supreme leader; the other six members are lawyers nominated by the judiciary chief and appointed only after winning parliamentary approval.

Rouhani's sharp rebuke of the council triggered a biting reaction from its spokesperson on Twitter.

"Causing an uproar over the vetting process is nothing new. But it is unfortunate to see the president at the forefront of such a campaign against the nation, Kadkhodaee said. He ended his tweet with a diatribe: "We didnt know, though, that what the president describes as purging other factions is, in fact, about disqualifying a candidate with a family association.

The spokesman's scorn alluded to an open secret, referencing the Guardian Council's disqualification of Rouhani's 34-year-old son-in-law, Kambiz Mehdizadeh, who had wanted to represent the northwestern constituency of Tabriz.

The tit-for-tat exchange was still far from over. Rouhani's office came out with a statement lamenting Kadkhodaee's comments as "ill-considered, hasty and petty.

It said, "While the president's criticism was meant to boost national unity and voter turnout, the Guardian Council's spokesman reduced the issue to a personal matter with an unwise tone that revealed his approach toward elections.

The latest infighting among the ruling elites came against a backdrop of multiple crises Iran has been grappling with in recent months. Opinion polls say public discontent rooted in economic grievances and the state's handling of nationwide street protests in November have dramatically reduced Iranians' willingness to take part in the upcoming polls.

TheIranian Students Polling Agency has already painted a gloomy picture of what lies ahead. According to its report released in early January, as many as 49% of residents surveyed in the capital, Tehran, have absolutely no intention to vote, 26.5% of respondents said they would go to the ballot box only if the Guardian Council approves their favored candidatesand 55.1% also held a cynical view toward the electoral process, predicting it wont be a healthy one.

The opinion poll's grim results came even before the recent wave of public rage in Iranian streets against what many deemed the state's attempt to cover up the Jan. 8 downing of a Ukrainian passenger jetliner by an Iranian missile strike that killed all 176 on board, most of them of Iranian origin.

The Guardian Council's unprecedented purge of candidates has not even spared such senior politicians as Ali Motahhari, who served as parliaments deputy speaker for threeyears.

The official explanations for the wide-reaching removals drew criticism from parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

"Some of those lawmakers have been disqualified on the grounds that they have not demonstrated practical commitment to the Islamic Republic. This is while I have been working with them on a daily basis for the past four or even eight years, and I have not witnessed such a problem in most of those people, he said.

Larijani, who has been at the helm of the Iranian parliament for 12 years, abruptly announced in late November that he would not run again for parliament. In defense of his fellow legislators, he urged "the gentlemen at the Guardian Council to practice the necessary shrewdness so that the rights of the candidates are not violated.

The heated political debate at the top echelons, however, does not seem to be shared by ordinary Iranians. Multiple woes faced by the Rouhani government the top one being the failure of the nuclear deal have deeply disillusioned the Iranian public, killing their expectations for the ballot box. What worsens the apathy is the perceived poor performance by many Reformist lawmakers, who won the 2016 elections and gained the parliamentary majority thanks to a remarkable turnout from a public hoping for change.

With those bleak factors at play this close to the election, Iran could be awaiting one of the least competitive electoral races in its recent history. Amid the anticipated low turnout, its no tough task, or a matter of speculation, to predict a winner. As Reformists and their supporters have been offered nearly no spot on the pitch, the vote is expected to see only like-minded conservatives and ultraconservatives battle it out for seats in their seeming win-win game.

Found in: reformists, conservatives, ukrainian jet, iranian protests, iranian parliament, iranian politics, hassan rouhani, guardian council, ali larijani

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Iran Iran pares election roster in favor of hard-liners - Al-Monitor