Iranian government-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) group has been targeting the critical infrastructure of the United States of America by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange and Fortinet, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) claimed. This claim, which came as part of a "joint cybersecurity advisory" issued by the FBI, CISA, UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), said that the cyber attackers are targeting a broad range of sectors such as transportation, healthcare and public health in the US, as well as Australian organizations. Russia, China and Iran have been in the cross-hairs of the US government for allegedly perpetrating state-sponsored cyberattacks targeting the country’s critical infrastructure. The Biden administration has been publicly calling out both these nation-states over these alleged attacks. This was reiterated by Biden when he met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in June this year. Attacks on critical infrastructure lead to a decline in trust between governments online, and lend themselves to retaliatory measures. In some instances, they lead to pushes for closing up of the Internet, and for firewalls and data localisation, thus having an impact on the openness of the Internet. Observed Iranian activity since March 2021: Advisory The FBI and CISA have observed alleged Iranian government-sponsored activities on Microsoft Exchange and Fortinet vulnerabilities since March 2021. Here is a brief timeline of what they observed: March 2021: "The FBI and CISA observed these Iranian government-sponsored APT actors scanning…
