While a group claiming to be the Iranian hackers took responsibility for an attack on US government agency and vowed to take revenge for the killing of their top military commander Qassem Suleimani, the Foreign Ministry of Austria has confirmed on Saturday that the country is facing a serious cyberattack incident.
The Austrian government mentioned about the cyberattack in a statement and warned that the hackers behind it belonged to another country, without revealing the name. Now, considering the current political situation, is possible that these threat actors are from Iran?
Cyberattack on government
In the statement, which was released on late Saturday night, the ministry revealed that attack was ongoing. It also added that "Due to the gravity and nature of the attack, it cannot be excluded that it is a targeted attack by a state actor."
The statement also reads that it is not the first time that hackers targeted a country from this region as earlier also cybercriminals launched similar digital attacks on European countries. However, the authorities have taken immediate measures and set up a "coordination committee."
The Saturday attack related to US-Iran war?
The attack appeared after Austria's Greens gave the go-ahead to a coalition with the country's conservatives at a party congress in Salzburg to remove unprecedented alliance. But the question is whether the alleged Iranian hackers attacked the Austria government or not?
It should be mentioned that Austria did not reveal the name of the country which probably backed the hackers to launch such attack on them. But it is possible that due to the bilateral relationship between US and Austria, the same cybercriminals who attacked the website of the Federal Depository Library Program after replacing the page name into "Iranian Hackers!", have targeted the foreign ministry.
US and Austria share many common values and common perspectives, including support for human rights and the rule of law, a shared vision of peace and freedom for all. These two countries are also bound together through myriads of people-to-people contacts in business, the arts, scholarship, recreation, as well as a host of other exchanges and they share partners in promoting global security and prosperity.
