Iran is no stranger to online spying, including through social links. It once created a fake news site to trick officials into compromising their accounts, and it launched a hacking campaign last year that targeted everyone from government higher-ups to dissidents. However, this latest attempt was clearly very sophisticated, an unnamed official tells the NYT. The intruders were aware of which people were working on Iranian policy following its nuclear agreement with the US, and the bottom-up approach is considerably smarter than the all-out Russian attacks from recent memory. From all indications, Iran is trying to get away with as much hacking as it can without wrecking its nuclear deal -- it's downplaying conspicuous cyberattacks in favor of discreet digital espionage.

[Image credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi]