Cyber Conflict Escalates Alongside US–Israel Strikes on Iran

Alongside the joint military strikes by the United States and Israel, a cyber war has also begun. Early Saturday morning, hackers launched attacks on multiple Iranian websites and popular applications. Cybersecurity experts said the incidents occurred at the same time as the United States and Israel carried out attacks on Iran’s military installations, Reuters reported.

Hackers breached Iran’s religious calendar application “Bade-Saba,” which has more than five million users, and displayed anti-government messages. Users saw messages on their screens stating, “The time for reckoning has come,” along with calls urging security forces to lay down their arms and join the people. Several news websites were also hacked to display different messages.

During the attacks, Iran’s internet connectivity was severely disrupted. According to data from network analysis firm Kentik, internet connections were cut off in two phases in the morning local time, and significantly fewer connections than usual remained active.

Cybersecurity analysts said the cyberattacks were intended to limit Iran’s coordinated response capabilities. A report by The Jerusalem Post stated that various Iranian government services and military installations were also targeted by cyberattacks.

Experts have warned that Iran-backed hacker groups have also increased their activities in response. Rafe Pilling, Director of Threat Intelligence at Sophos, said that Iran is now considering its response options. During this time, Iran-backed groups and hacktivists may carry out attacks on military, commercial, and civilian installations in Israel and the United States.

Adam Meyers, Senior Vice President of Counter Adversary Operations at CrowdStrike, said that Iran-affiliated hacker groups and hacktivists are already conducting surveillance and have launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Another cybersecurity firm, Anomali, reported that even before the latest strikes, Iran-backed hacker groups had carried out “data wiper” attacks on Israeli targets, which completely erase data.

Last June, after the United States launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran’s cyber response was comparatively limited. However, experts fear that under the current circumstances, the scale of cyberattacks could increase further.

DBTech/BMT/OR