It’s a perfect summer day in Maine for setting traps – but unfortunately Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is thinking of a different trap than the type Maine lobstermen are baiting today.
The cyber kind – the kind that “catches” you off guard.
And the scary part is, the Iranian monster who’s plotting his revenge on US President Donald Trump doesn’t need to worry about buying herring to do his phishing.
All that pathetic loser needs is a mouse…
Khamenei deals with a trap world’s different than Maine’s lobster guys’.
The threat is real – Homeland Security officials Sunday warned Americans to be on the lookout for Iran-based attacks in the wake of Saturday’s bombing of its nuclear facilities.
The national threat comes on the heels of several Maine hospitals being victimized from a recent cyber attack – which was also possibly foreign-born.
And there’s a new kind of cyber attack – the Internet is now lighting up with Iranian-based Twitter fakes masquerading as Jews.
With Khamenei’s bruised ego and his wanting revenge on America, actually anything is possible, from cyber warfare to firebombing Maine’s synagogues.
But it’s the electronic attacks that are the most insidious because they creep in unseen.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies says it uncovered an Iranian social media operation instructing its audience how to use AI to create fake accounts on X where they pose as Israelis and post demoralizing messages in Hebrew.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that an Iran-based actor is also making trouble via social media,using the fake name “Jason Greenblatt” to conduct cyber attacks.
The U.S. may have big beautiful bombs but Iran, China and North Korea have their own perfected brand of terror – breaking in to our computers.
Just 10 days ago, multiple large institutions in Maine suffered from ransomware-style cyber attacks thought to originate from a foreign adversary.
And six months ago Cumberland Police Department were investigating a phishing attack from outside the U.S. that used the email of a student from MSAD 51.
That electronic incursion occurred about the same time as South Portland Public Schools took their network offline after a data attack of unknown origin.
The insidiousness of cyber attacks is their stealth – they’re hard if not impossible to pinpoint in origin.
But it doesn’t take much imagination to know what’s coming.
Think Iran or China or maybe even fatso over in North Korea.
Now that Trump has bombed Iran, undoubtedly Khamenei is already working on ways to avenge his embarrassment at the hands of “Operation Midnight Hammer.”
Guard your laptops, phones – you name it.
But Maine – not Khamenei – is actually the one that should be seeking revenge against Iran’s leadership.
In fact, Saturday’s bombing came 46 years too late for many Mainers.
The 1979 grabbing of American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran included a Mount Desert Island man, Moorhead Kennedy, who died last year at the age of 93.
Another hostage, Richard Queen, came from Lincolnville. Queen was released early, in 1980, for medical reasons and died in 2002.
Kennedy’s and Queen’s families deserves Khamenei in a box – and not the kind in which cyber creeps lurk.
