AUSTIN, Texas -- Cyber-security has been top of mind following escalating tensions with Iran. This week, Governor Greg Abbott warned Texans to be “vigilant” over potential cyber-terrorism from the country. Tuesday, the governor suggested that heightened tensions with Iran had caused an increase in attempted attacks on state agencies.
Additionally, the FBI is investigating a cyber-attack on the Texas Department of Agriculture website that included a photo of Iran's top general who was killed in a U.S. drone strike.
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Cybersecurity experts are also monitoring an uptick of malicious activity by pro-Iranian hackers.
“Certainly it looks like over the past 48 hours there’s been a little bit of a step-back from a direct military confrontation,” said David Springer who spent six years working in counter-terrorism and cybersecurity at the Defense Intelligence Agency. “But in some ways that actually increases the risk of cyber activity because, while we may have stepped back from exchanges of rockets and airstrikes, the cyber-attacks are a lot more amorphous and harder to attribute and harder to retaliate for because you just don’t know who did it. Attribution is always a huge problem.”
Click the video link above to watch our full interview with Springer.
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