Intelligence chief: Iran, Russia, China top intel threats to U.S.

There’s a growing risk that Iran might launch terror attacks against U.S. targets, including in the homeland, as tensions rise over Tehran’s nuclear program and the U.S.-led sanctions against the Islamic regime, according the U.S. intelligence chief.

Last year’s discovery of a plot by Iranian officials to kill a Saudi diplomat in Washington “shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States,” Director of National IntelligenceJames R. Clapper said in testimony prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.

“We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas,” Mr. Clapper said during a committee hearing on global threats against the United States.

Iran has joined Russia and China as one of the “most menacing foreign intelligence threats” to the U.S., Mr. Clapper told the committee. Foreign intelligence services from these three countries “will remain the top threats to the United States in the coming years.”

“Iran’s intelligence operations against the United States, including cyber capabilities, have dramatically increased in recent years in depth and complexity,” he said.

The Washington Times reported in October that an Iranian hacker, possibly state-sponsored, is widely believed to have been behind several breaches last year of the Internet security system known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Computer users know the system as the padlock in the browser that shows that online shopping, banking and other communications are secure.

Without mentioning Iran, Mr. Clapper said the SSL breach “represents a threat to one of the most fundamental technologies used to secure online communications and sensitive transactions.”

Previous assessments of the foreign spy threat, like last year’s report to Congress by the National Counter-Intelligence Executive, had identified economic espionage by Russia and China as a top-tier intelligence threat, but had not highlighted Iran.

Foreign intelligence services “have launched numerous computer network operations targeting U.S. government agencies, businesses, and universities,” said Mr. Clapper, without naming them. “Foreign cyber actors have also begun targeting classified networks.”