The National Security Agency, alongside partner agencies like the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has released a joint cybersecurity advisory concerning efforts by Iranian cyber actors to compromise the systems belonging to various critical infrastructure—or CI—sectors.

Attack Objectives

The NSA said Wednesday that since 2023, Iranian cyber actors have been using brute force and other techniques to break into systems used by energy, government, healthcare and other CI organizations. MITRE ATT&CK defines brute force as the attempt by an attacker to systematically guess the target system’s password via “a repetitive or iterative mechanism.”

Once the Iranian attackers gain access, they work to enable persistent access by modifying multifactor authentication registrations. They also steal more credentials to sell on criminal forums.

Purpose of the Advisory

The joint cybersecurity advisory seeks to provide readers with recommendations on how to detect brute force activity on their systems. The document also offers recommendations on how to mitigate such activities.

“We explain the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by the Iranian actors, as well as indicators of compromise,” NSA Cybersecurity Director Dave Luber explained.

“Our agencies are sharing detailed insight into this malicious cyber activity and what organizations can do to shore up their defenses,” Luber added.

The U.S. Army has launched a pilot program designed to help small businesses in the defense industrial base meet cybersecurity requirements.

The Army said Wednesday the Next-Gen Commercial Operations in Defended Enclaves pilot, or N-CODE, will merge commercial cloud offerings with enhanced security features to provide small enterprises with a secure environment to store, communicate and process sensitive data.

With N-CODE, small businesses can use an initial set of productivity tools that could help them meet most of the security controls under the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.

DOD News reported that the Army is allocating approximately $26 million in fiscal year 2025 and FY 2026 funds for the N-CODE pilot program.

“This essentially provides a cyber-secure enclave in a secure environment for small businesses to participate in where they can collaborate, share information, [and] most importantly, do their own work that they need to that would otherwise present a threat vector for actors that we know are very active in the cybersecurity space,” Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo said of the pilot during a discussion at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting Tuesday.

“What’s great about it is [that] it is compliant with CMMC, so all of the department’s requirements would be met by operating in this environment,” Camarillo added.