Iran to fund cyber attacks with cryptocurrency | City & Business | Finance

Mr Fanusie, now adjunct senior fellow at the Center For A New American Security think tank, said: “Because cyberattacks are a form of asymmetric warfare with plausible deniability, it makes sense that Iran would use them to strike back. “Crypto could play a role in that.” He says Iran is likely to use cryptocurrency to fund disinformation tactics in the upcoming US election, similar to how Russia used digital currency as part of its interference in the previous campaign.

“Crypto helped Russia mount that operation, to purchase VPNs, rent computer servers, and buy domain names – it was mostly paid for in bitcoin,” he said.

“The US needs to understand information warfare is a growing part of cyber. It’s relatively easy to do a social media campaign with bots and the like.

“Crypto plays a role as you can hide your identity when purchasing these tools.”

Cybersecurity experts and government officials have already seen a spike in activity from pro-Iranian hackers and…