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The fundamental security and political dynamics haven’t changed, so I don’t see additional major complications for reviving the deal arising from the attack – though it does make the optics harder, of course.” Mr Plant, a former director of the Royal United Services Institute’s proliferation and nuclear policy programme, said he believed the US and the EU were not “under any illusions as to the nature of the Iranian regime, or its nuclear aspirations”. He added: “If this deal is revived then it will be because it serves the security interests of the various parties involved, not because there has been a great shift in perspective on the challenges that the regime poses.”

The industry has seen a rise in ransomware incidents targeting middle-income and developing countries such as Costa Rica, South Africa, Malaysia, Peru, Brazil, and India. Such attacks threaten these countries’ economic development and political stability, among other areas, said Joseph Jarnecki and Jamie MacColl of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and high-income countries have a responsibility to expand their efforts to offer technical assistance. The pair called on the likes of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to offer targeted nations in the Global South the same level of international support as it does to other allied nations.