Group Claiming To Be Iranian Hacks U.S. Government Website

A group claiming to be from Iran hacked a U.S. government website on Saturday night, which comes as tensions between the United States and Iran reached new heights after the U.S. killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, which is a designated terrorist organization.

FOX 5 reporter Lauren DeMarco tweeted, “Right now: Working to learn more but the Federal Depository Library Program website appears to have been hacked by someone claiming to be from Iran.”

Right now: Working to learn more but the Federal Depository Library Program website appears to have been hacked by someone claiming to be from Iran. @fox5dc https://t.co/LIVangxvKn

— Lauren DeMarco (@Ldemarconews) January 5, 2020

Journalist Yashar Ali tweeted a screenshot of the website’s preview tile on Google, writing, “Looks like a group *claiming* to be Iranian hackers has hacked the Federal Depository Library Program website … It’s been shut down for now.”

Looks like a group *claiming* to be Iranian hackers has hacked the Federal Depository Library Program website at https://t.co/Q4uzvBg1RO

It’s been shut down for now pic.twitter.com/FbdPwKs247

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 5, 2020

Fox News reporter Andres Del Aguila reported that a former senior U.S. Government National Security official told Fox News, “It has the feel of being pretty insignificant … they just hacked a website that most Washington insiders don’t know existed … Honestly, this is not very hard … this website had very weak security.”

Del Aguila added, “The source suspects this hack was not done by the Iranian government but instead by a sympathizer or proxy group.”

The source suspects this hack was not done by the Iranian government but instead by a sympathizer or proxy group.

— Andres Del Aguila (@Andres_DAguila) January 5, 2020

The Spectator Index tweeted out a screenshot of the way that the Federal Depository Library Program appeared during the hack.

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1213633472318726144

Politico reported on Saturday that in recent years Iranian hackers “have wiped the computer servers of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, crippled a Las Vegas casino [owned by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson], breached the networks of dozens of U.S. banks and been accused of trying to meddle in the 2020 presidential election.”

“Tehran is widely considered to be one of the world’s most malicious online actors — alongside China, Russia and North Korea — and has a lengthy rap sheet of transgressions with an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of digital weapons,” Politico added. One of its specialties is so-called wiper attacks, in which malicious software erases the hard drives of infected computers. Those include a massive 2012 hack on the Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco that is reported to have debilitated an estimated 30,000 computers.

This is a developing news story, refresh the page for updates.