Iran imposes internet blackout across nation amid cyberattacks, security fears

The heavy onslaught of cyberattacks from Israel has led Iran to impose an internet and telephone blackout across the country, cutting off all connectivity and communication at a critical time. Tehran has told its citizens that the blackout was necessary to prevent Israeli cyberattacks as fears grow about the US joining the ongoing conflict, though President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will take up to two weeks to decide on an attack on Iran. Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has called the measure needed and temporary, “given the abuse of the country’s communication network by the aggressor enemy,” according to a statement cited by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

However, as per reports, it is not just the cyberattacks that have forced Iran to shut down the internet, and security concerns were also an equally big reason.

Israel eliminated the top brass of Iran’s security and military chain of command when it initiated its strikes on military and nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic.

Highly accurate strikes triggered panic

The accuracy of the strikes that killed several senior military commanders and nuclear scientists set off panic, and the Iranian government told people to uninstall WhatsApp from their phones since it believed that the application that offers end-to-end encrypted services was sharing user information with Israel.

WhatsApp denied the claims, describing them as “false reports” the Iranian state is using as an excuse to block its services “at a time when people need them the most.”

Israel, meanwhile, continues to strike Iranian nuclear sites and targets in Tehran and other cities.

Iran’s state-run news agency and semi-official outlets have continued to publish stories on the Telegram messaging app, which the Islamic Republic prefers since it is not headquartered in the US.

Since Wednesday afternoon, both mobile phones and domestic landlines in Iran have been unreachable from outside the country.

Hacking group ‘Predatory Sparrow’ attacks Iranian bank, crypto exchange

A hacking group with links to Israel has claimed responsibility for disrupting operations at an Iranian bank and flooding the crypto market with approximately $90 million (€77 million) in stolen funds.

Gonjeshke Darande, or ‘Predatory Sparrow’, the anti-Iranian hacking group, claimed an attack on one of Iran’s most prominent banks, Bank Sepah, this week, and Iranian media said at the time that people faced difficulties in accessing their accounts, withdrawing cash, or using their bank cards.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Bank Sepah in 2018 for supporting Iran’s military.

The hacking group then targeted Iran’s cryptocurrency exchange, Nobitex, and claimed to have burned $90 million from accounts that belong to the Israeli regime and posted the source code for the platform on Thursday morning.

The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported Iran’s ministry of communications saying in a statement that internet access had been restricted after extensive cyberattacks and confirming that a state-owned bank and a private bank were targeted, besides a cryptocurrency exchange, which lost about $100 million in assets. The internet blackout was the ministry’s defensive tool, as the intensity of cyberattacks decreased after online access was cut off.