Protests have been going on in Iran since the death of Masha Amini in police custody for the ‘crime’ of not wearing a hijab properly. Hacker organizations known in the tech world including Anonymous have joined this protest. They are conducting multi-pronged cyber attacks on the country’s government infrastructure. In addition, hackers are encouraging Iranian citizens to use ‘virtual private networks’ or VPNs, proxy servers and the dark web after Tehran imposed strict restrictions on the country’s Internet connection system. Digital freedom activists are teaching Iranian citizens how to use the Tor browser.
Check Point, a software manufacturer, has reported that a ‘distributed-denial-of-service’ or DDoS attack is a technique that sends more data traffic from various sources than the website or server can handle. Cyber security firm CloudFlare and internet watchdog group NetBlox have confirmed multiple instances of telecommunications outages. Amin Hasbini, director of global research and analysis at cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, confirmed the attack.
Another hacker group, Atlas Intelligence Group, on the encrypted messaging service Telegram, claimed to have leaked the phone numbers and email addresses of top Iranian officials and celebrities. This process is known as ‘doxing’ among hackers.
The representatives of the international hacker organization Anonymous have threatened to hack the computer system of the Iranian Parliament and expose the personal information of the lawmakers.
While it is difficult to verify the authenticity of the hackers’ claims, Liad Mizrachi, a security expert at Check Point Research, said there were multiple indications of hacker attacks on Iran’s domestic digital infrastructure.
Emil Hufbert, an analyst at cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told CNBC, “Mandiant confirmed that several of the services claimed to have been attacked were offline at different times; Some are still unusable.”
