CINCINNATI — A joint alert sent on Monday from several U.S. intelligence agencies warned of an increased risk of cyberattacks targeting U.S. businesses and critical U.S. infrastructure.
The alert comes a week after the Department of Homeland Security issued a broader warning about the threat of cyberattacks from Iran or Iranian proxies.
The call for more awareness and defense against online threats comes in the wake of the so-called 12-day war between Israel and Iran that culminated with a U.S. air strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities, an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. base in Qatar and a delicate ceasefire agreement in the Middle East.
We talked with Intrust IT Cybersecurity Expert David Hatter, who said he wasn't surprised in the least by an increased threat from Iran in the wake of more conventional warfare tactics.
"I think they're pretty advanced," Hatter said. "When you're in the business like me, you generally talk about the Axis of Evil from a cybersecurity perspective, which is Iran, China, North Korea and Russia."
WATCH: How to protect yourself from cyberattacks from overseas
Iran and Iranian-related criminals are suspected of a long history of targeting adversaries in cyberspace, exploiting vulnerabilities in banking systems, infrastructure like power grids and some businesses and individuals, according to an FBI threat assessment.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency noted in their report that attacks from Iran are far from unusual.
"Hacktivists and Iranian-government-affiliated actors routinely target poorly secured U.S. networks and internet-connected devices for disruptive cyberattacks," the agency wrote in its alert.
Hatter warned that it could impact a wide range of targets.
"It can potentially inflict a lot of damage, possibly catastrophic damage, at relatively little cost and relatively little risk," he said.
Hatter warned people to pay attention to the threats and work to harden their systems against hackers.
"There's nothing you can do to make your organization 100% impervious to this stuff except for get off the grid entirely and go live in a cabin somewhere," he said.
Hatter said standard practices like creating new passwords for each account and using multi-factor authentication to access sensitive information were great ways to deter hackers, but the hardware in your home or business may be the biggest vulnerability in your life.
He said old equipment can be a perfect entrance point for hackers.
"'If it ain't broke, don't fix it?' 'Yeah, what I've got works?' 'I don't care that I've got a 10-year-old piece of equipment that I can't get patched by the vendor?' We need to stop thinking like that," he said.
Hatter also urges people not to risk using "free" or cheap security software.
"Don't get the free thing you found on the internet because, frankly, it might be malware thinly disguised as anti-virus," he said.
For a full list of resources and tools you can use to harden your home and business against threats online, you can visit the CISA website by clicking here.
