Over the last few months, there has been an uptick of espionage revelations concerning Iran and its interest in collecting information against regional adversaries as well as Iranian ex-pats whose views are divergent to those of the current regime. It is important for CISOs to understand the human side to the Iranian offensive efforts to gather information of interest.
Iran recruits eyes within Israel
In mid-January Israel’s Shin Bet (internal security service) revealed four Israeli women had been arrested for espionage, having been successfully recruited by Iranian intelligence via Facebook. The women, all of Iranian descent, were contacted by an individual who identified himself as Rambod Namdar, who claimed to be a Jewish man living in Iran. The modus operandi is one that has been seen many times before: Establish contact via a social network and then daisy-chain the contact to a seemingly more secure communication medium, in this case, WhatsApp.