Designating Iranian Cyber Officials

The United States is today designating the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber–Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC), an organization that has been responsible for a series of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the United States and other countries, and five of its senior officials.

The United States is taking action against these individuals to respond to these harmful activities and IRGC-affiliated cyber actors’ recent cyber operations targeting programmable logic controllers (PLCs), in which actors used default credentials to display an anti-Israel message on the PLCs’ human-machine interface. Industrial control devices, such as PLCs, used in water and other critical infrastructure systems, are sensitive targets.  Although this particular operation fortunately did not disrupt any critical services, unauthorized access to critical infrastructure systems poses an elevated risk of harm to the public and can result in devastating humanitarian consequences.

Cyber operations that intentionally damage or impair the operation of critical infrastructure are destabilizing and potentially escalatory.  Today’s action sends a clear message that such actions will not be tolerated.

The Department of the Treasury action was taken pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended.  For more information on this designation, see Treasury’s press release.