US Government Site Defaced Using Pro-Iranian Messages

The government website of the US Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) was attacked by what claims to be a group of Iranian hackers. The event comes on the heels of the US drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and caused an escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran as well as on a global level. In the past, we have witnessed many other attempts by Iranian culprits for hacking websites and initiating attacks over the Internet.

The website had its content replaced by a black screen with both English and Perso-Arabic script on it. Below the text was a collage depicting US President Donald Trump with a bloodied lip, being hit in the face by a fist. The fist belongs to an arm clad in an Iranian military uniform bearing the Quds Force insignia. The entity taking responsibility for the cyber-attack, at least according to the text on the defaced page, is called "Iran Cyber Security Group Hackers." Despite those claims and the fact that the hacker page opened up with "This is a message from the Islamic Republic of Iran," a spokesperson from the US government stated that there is "no confirmation" that Iranian nationals were responsible for the cyber-attack.

The text on the defaced page included a number of additional threats, including a "#hardrevenge" hashtag. The English portion of the message on the hacked page also states that Iran will support all "oppressed" people in Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Bahrain, as well as the "true mujahideen resistance" in Lebanon and Palestine. After being taken down soon after the attack and returning a generic Error 520 for a while, the website affected by the cyber-attack has been restored to normal working order and is currently up and operating as usual.

Sara Sendek, a spokesperson for the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated that the website was defaced using "pro-Iranian anti-US messaging," once again underlining the lack of hard evidence that the attack was carried out by "Iranian state-sponsored actors."

Soleimani's successor as leader of the Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, stated that his department will "continue martyr Soleimani's path with the same force." The US government, in turn, advised its citizens to leave Iraq as soon as possible and dispatched another 3,000 troops to the region.