Iran capable of launching cyber attack against U.S., experts say

TEHRAN, April 28 (MNA) – The Huffington Post, in an article published on April 26, wrote that Iran’s cyber capabilities should not be underestimated. Iran’s intelligence operations against the United States, including cyber capabilities, “have dramatically increased in recent years in depth and complexity,” the article quoted James Clapper, the director of the U.S. National Intelligence, as telling a Senate committee earlier this year. According to the article, the Iranian government has reportedly invested $1 billion to develop and build out its own cyberwar capabilities. The commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, announced on April 22 that Iran had successfully cracked the codes of and reverse-engineered an advanced U.S. spy drone that violated the country’s airspace in 2011, Iran announced on December 4, 2011 that an advanced RQ-170 unmanned U.S. spy plane had been brought down by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic but did not say when the incident occurred. “More than 50 years of the Americans’ technology of manned and unmanned aircraft has been used in this spy drone. All the technologies that the Americans have used in the F-35 aircraft, stealth bombers, the Polecat, etc. have been used in this plane,” Hajizadeh stated at the time.