By James Hess – CEO and Co-Founder, Unknown Cyber
In today’s world, military strength is no longer defined solely by missiles and troops. The digital realm has become a battlefield, and among America’s adversaries, Iran stands out for its determination, unpredictability, and growing cyber capabilities. As geopolitical tensions flare, the risk of Iranian cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure is not hypothetical – it is imminent.
Iran has steadily evolved into a formidable cyber actor. From website defacements a decade ago to today’s sophisticated attacks on industrial systems and defense contractors, the country has embraced cyber as a tool of asymmetric warfare. Iran understands it cannot match the United States in conventional arms. But in cyberspace – inexpensive, deniable, and disruptive – it has found a strategic equalizer.
(video source: WMUR.com)
Cyber Retaliation and the Escalation Dilemma
Increased sanctions, regional isolation, and proxy conflicts have pushed Iran to retaliate through cyber means. Threat groups like APT33, APT34 (OilRig), and APT35 (Charming Kitten) have launched wide-ranging campaigns against U.S. aerospace firms, financial institutions, healthcare systems, and government agencies. These groups are not rogue hackers. They are arms of the Iranian state, aligned with Tehran’s national security goals.
Iran’s cyber doctrine favors disruption over destruction. It is designed to instill fear, create instability, and signal strength – all while avoiding direct military confrontation. That doctrine makes them especially dangerous. They aim to provoke just below the threshold that would warrant a full-scale response.
What They Want to Hit: Water, Power, Trust
Iranian threat actors are probing more than email systems. They are targeting the very infrastructure that sustains modern American life. The 2020 cyberattack on Israeli water systems – attributed to Iranian operatives – was a wake-up call. It was a proof-of-concept for cyber sabotage against civilian utilities.
What happens when a ransomware attack disables a power grid during a heatwave? What if water treatment systems are altered to release unsafe chemical levels? These are no longer science fiction scenarios. They are rehearsals for disruption.
At Unknown Cyber, we’ve observed firsthand how Iranian malware is becoming more evasive. It leverages polymorphic code, fileless techniques, and supply chain infiltration to bypass traditional defenses. The tools many organizations rely on today were never built to stop this level of threat.
Attribution and Deterrence in the Age of Ambiguity
Attributing a cyberattack to a nation-state is notoriously difficult. Iran thrives in this ambiguity. It uses proxies, disinformation, and false flags to sow confusion and delay retaliation. This gives them room to operate while the target scrambles to identify the attacker.
That’s where next-generation detection comes into play. At Unknown Cyber, our platform uses advanced mathematics to extract the functional identity of code – even when it’s obfuscated or disguised. We go beyond signatures to analyze how code behaves at the function level. This enables us to detect and statistically attribute even the most evasive threats before they strike.
Attribution is not just a technical challenge – it is a national security imperative. Without fast, confident attribution, deterrence breaks down. And when deterrence fails, the door to escalation opens.
Iran’s Long Game
Iran’s cyber strategy is patient. It is built on persistence. Iranian operators infiltrate networks and lie in wait, collecting data, stealing credentials, and mapping systems over months or even years. When tensions rise – after a drone strike, assassination, or diplomatic breakdown – they activate those access points to create maximum disruption.
This is not guesswork. It is a documented pattern. As someone who has served as a Cyber Fusion Intelligence Officer with the U.S. Army Reserve Cyber Protection Brigade, I’ve seen how threats evolve behind the scenes. The danger is not always in what’s active – it’s in what’s lying dormant.
Closing the Window of Vulnerability
We cannot afford to wait for the next catastrophic breach to act. Protecting critical infrastructure from Iranian cyber threats requires a shift in strategy:
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Detect by behavior, not by appearance – Code is increasingly evasive. Function-level analysis is the future of early threat detection.
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Clarify cyber deterrence policy – We must define red lines and make consequences clear to state actors who attack our infrastructure.
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Integrate intelligence across sectors – Private sector insights and government telemetry must work together. No one can defend alone.
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Plan for recovery, not just prevention – Breaches will happen. The key is how fast we detect, contain, and restore operations.
Closing Thoughts
Iran’s cyber threat is not theoretical. It is active, evolving, and aligned with their strategic calculus. Cyber is not just a tool for espionage or crime – it is a weapon of war. And Iran is wielding it with increasing skill and confidence.
We must recognize that the frontline is no longer overseas – it is inside our hospitals, water plants, power grids, and supply chains. Iran has already stepped onto that battlefield. The only question is whether we’re ready to defend it.
About The Author
James Hess is the CEO and co-founder of Unknown Cyber, a cutting-edge cybersecurity firm that automates threat detection through advanced mathematical comparison, AI, and automation. This national security-grade technology enables the extraction of the functional identity of computer code at the byte-code level. Born from DARPA’s Cyber Genome Project and backed by In-Q-Tel, Unknown Cyber delivers detection and attribution capabilities at a speed, scale, and accuracy never before achievable. Its platform extracts precise function-level behavior—even from heavily obfuscated or polymorphic code—enabling early identification and statistical attribution of zero-day, fileless, and evasive threats.
In parallel with his commercial leadership, James has served as a Cyber Fusion Intelligence Officer for the U.S. Army Reserve Cyber Protection Brigade and previously led the Huntsville unit of the 75th Innovation Command. He established the Hacking for Defense (H4D) program at Tulane University and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, enabling academic teams to solve real-world defense problems. He currently teaches at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
James holds an MBA and an MS in Analytics from Tulane University, as well as an MS in IT Management from Webster University.