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US Withholds Evidence for Iran Cyberattacks

Computer experts say they believe Iran is responsible for a barrage of attacks on the websites of US banks but that the Obama administration should reveal how it knows this and acknowledge responsibility for its own cyberattacks on Iran.
John Bumgarner, a cyber warfare expert who is chief technology officer of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit group that studies the impact of cyber threats, works on his laptop computer during a portrait session in Charlotte, North Carolina December 1, 2011. A cyber warfare expert claims he has linked the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010 to Conficker, a mysterious worm that surfaced in late 2008 and infected millions of PCs. Conficker was used to open back door

Iran is a logical suspect in a barrage of cyberattacks that have hit major US and international banks in recent months.

The so-called distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) – which make it hard to access websites that are being bombarded with requests from hacker-run computers – seem understandable for two reasons: They could be revenge for the computer viruses such as Stuxnet that destroyed more than 1,000 Iranian centrifuges in 2010 and other covert assaults on Iran’s nuclear program. They could also be a response to draconian US-led sanctions on Iranian banks that are making it difficult for Iran to conduct normal trade and especially to repatriate money from oil exports.

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