{"id":8024,"date":"2026-03-02T19:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T19:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=8024"},"modified":"2026-03-05T06:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T06:14:06","slug":"iran-could-use-ai-to-accelerate-cyberattacks-on-u-s-and-israeli-critical-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=8024","title":{"rendered":"Iran could use AI to accelerate cyberattacks on U.S. and Israeli critical infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Could Iranian hackers try to use AI to attack critical infrastructure in the U.S., Israel, and the Gulf States? The question has taken on new urgency as Iran finds itself in open military conflict with the U.S. and Israel, and as signs of state-sponsored hacking campaigns using automated tools are becoming more. prominent. In November 2025, Anthropic <a aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/www.anthropic.com\/news\/disrupting-AI-espionage\" href=\"https:\/\/www.anthropic.com\/news\/disrupting-AI-espionage\">reported <\/a>that Chinese state-sponsored hackers used the company\u2019s AI to conduct a largely automated cyberattack against a group of technology companies and government agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Experts told <em>Fortune <\/em>that while there is no public evidence Iran can yet orchestrate AI-powered cyber agents at the level Anthropic documented China doing late last year, the country remains one of the world\u2019s most capable cyber powers outside the major players\u2014the United States, China, and Russia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThreat actors from Iran have often targeted the United States and Israel over the years, perpetrating attacks against critical infrastructure; performing espionage, DDoS [distributed denial-of-service] attacks, influence campaigns, and attacks designed to wipe systems,\u201d said Allie Mellen, a principal analyst at Forrester Research and author of the upcoming<em> Code War: How Nations Hack, Spy, and Shape the Digital Battlefield.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a well-resourced organization and sophisticated cyber actor, agreed Bob Kolasky, senior vice president of critical infrastructure at AI supply-chain company Exiger. \u201cIt would be surprising if they weren\u2019t using AI to advance their offensive cyber capabilities,\u201d he said. \u201cIran has more than 10 years of history in attacking U.S. critical infrastructure, so they have clear intent and capability of such attacks and would presumably use their latest weapons.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mellen said Iran has been experimenting with using AI in hacking operations for years. As one example, she explained, Google <a aria-label=\"Go to https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/cyber-security\/google-reports-that-state-hackers-from-china-russia-and-iran-are-using-gemini-in-all-stages-of-attacks-phishing-lures-coding-and-vulnerability-testing-get-ai-underpinnings-from-hostile-actors\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/cyber-security\/google-reports-that-state-hackers-from-china-russia-and-iran-are-using-gemini-in-all-stages-of-attacks-phishing-lures-coding-and-vulnerability-testing-get-ai-underpinnings-from-hostile-actors\">recently reported<\/a> that Iranian hackers have used its Gemini AI system to help gather information on targets, trick people through more convincing phishing messages, and assist in building hacking tools.<\/p>\n<p>But Iran does not need access to a Western model like Anthropic\u2019s to conduct AI-assisted attacks, according to Leeron Walter, vice president of strategy at data protection company Teramind.\u00a0 \u201cOpen-weight models like Meta\u2019s Llama and Chinese models like DeepSeek can be downloaded, run locally [without being connected to the internet], and fine-tuned with no usage restrictions and no guardrails,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In fact, she pointed out that for a sanctioned nation-state like Iran that can\u2019t easily access U.S.-based models, using open-source models is actually a better operational security posture than trying to misuse a monitored commercial platform. \u201cThey will lean into unmonitored, locally deployed open-weight models where there is no kill switch, no logging, and no terms of service,\u201d Walter said.<\/p>\n<p>For Iran-linked hacking groups, AI mostly makes familiar tactics faster and more effective. It allows them to send more convincing phishing emails at a much larger scale\u2014messages that appear to come from trusted contacts and are designed to trick people into sharing sensitive information. AI can also help hackers more quickly find weak points in systems, scan networks for targets, and write or adapt malicious software without needing top-tier programmers for every operation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese groups have historically targeted energy, oil and gas, and critical infrastructure\u2014sectors where a well-timed disruption has outsized geopolitical impact,\u201d said Walter. \u201cAI makes them faster and more scalable, not fundamentally different in their objectives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This all leads to plenty of concerns for governments and companies, said Kolasky. If China decides to more closely commit to helping Iranian military objectives, it could grant more assistance with AI capabilities, he explained. Also, Iran may have incentives to \u201cempty the tank\u201d and use all means available to it as conflict escalates. \u201cAI-enabled cyberattacks have not really been tested at scale, and whether U.S. critical infrastructure can defend against novel attacks is unknown,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are clearly vulnerabilities that can be exploited, and AI will make it easier for Iran to identify those.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Could Iranian hackers try to use AI to attack critical infrastructure in the U.S., Israel, and the Gulf States? The question has taken on new urgency as Iran finds itself&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":416,"featured_media":8025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[8843,4658,8844,3459,1685,881,668],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Iran could use AI to accelerate cyberattacks on U.S. and Israeli critical infrastructure - Frisco Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While there\u2019s no public evidence Iran can deploy fully autonomous cyber agents, AI may already be accelerating familiar attacks against critical infrastructure.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=8024\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Iran could use AI to accelerate cyberattacks on U.S. and Israeli critical infrastructure - 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