ST – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday the Texas Department of Information Resources has seen a spike in attempted cyberattacks from Iran on state agency networks at the rate of about 10,000 per minute. The increase in activity from that area has come in the last 48 hours, and to the department’s knowledge, none of the probes has been successful, said Amanda Crawford, the executive director of the Department of Information Resources.
“We have no way of knowing whether anything is government-based or not, or government-sanctioned. What we’re doing is scanning on our state networks, and we can see where attacks are coming from,” Crawford said. Tensions between the two countries have boiled over after the U.S. killed Iran Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani last week in a drone strike authorized by President Donald Trump.
Crawford said that while federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have issued advisories warning of a heightened cybersecurity threat, similar probes are not uncommon. READ MORE
