Comment: Something to keep in mind regarding Iran's accidental downing of the Ukrainian Airlines plane in Tehran this week...
© EPAThe cyber-attack targeted rocket and missile systems operated by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
The cyber-attack disabled computer systems controlling rocket and missile launchers, the Washington Post said.
Comment: In the recent incident, their launchers were not disabled of course, but one imagines that it's within US capability to trick a radar/launcher operator into believing that he's seeing a cruise missile instead of a passenger plane...
It was in retaliation for the shooting down of a US drone as well as attacks on oil tankers that the US has blamed Iran for, the New York Times said.
There is no independent confirmation of damage to Iranian systems.
The US is set to impose further sanctions on Iran that President Trump has described as "major".
He said the sanctions were needed to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and economic pressure would be maintained unless Tehran changed course.
What did the US cyber-attack do?
The attack had been planned for several weeks, the sources told US media outlets, and was suggested as a way of responding to the mine attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
It was aimed at weapons systems used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which shot down the US drone last Thursday and which the US says also attacked the tankers.
Both the Washington Post and AP news agency said the cyber-attack had disabled the systems. The New York Times said it was intended to take the systems offline for a period of time.
On Saturday the US Department for Homeland Security warned that Iran was stepping up its own cyber-attacks on the US.
Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said "malicious cyberactivity" was being directed at US industries and government agencies by "Iranian regime actors and their proxies".
They were using "destructive 'wiper' attacks", he said, using tactics such as "spear phishing, password spraying and credential stuffing" in a bid to take control of entire networks.
Iran has also been trying to hack US naval ship systems, the Washington Post reported.
What has Trump said?
He hasn't commented on the cyber-attack reports. On Friday he said he had pulled out of launching conventional strikes on Iran because he had been told that 150 Iranians would be killed.
On Saturday he said he was open to talks with the Iranians.
"If Iran wants to become a prosperous nation... it's OK with me," Mr Trump said. "But they're never going to do it if they think in five or six years they're going to have nuclear weapons."
"Let's make Iran great again," he added, echoing his campaign slogan from the 2016 presidential election.
Read the rest here
It would be nice to have someone to blame, other than the Iranians, but shit happens.