Hackers linked to Iran have been blamed for a cyber-attack that forced a small-scale British power plant offline for four days last month, in what the UK government described as a contained incident posing no risk to the wider energy system. The attack is seen as a possible escalation of Iranian hostility following the UK's decision to permit the United States to launch "defensive" operations against Tehran from British military bases — a move that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned could make those bases "legitimate targets." Iran has a long record of alleged cyber-operations against Western and regional targets, and US security agencies warned earlier this year of IRGC-linked attacks on critical infrastructure, including a 2023 campaign attributed to an Iran-affiliated group called CyberAv3ngers that compromised at least 75 devices across multiple sectors.