Hackers and internet shutdowns in Iran took place amid US attacks

Earlier on Saturday, cities in Iran, including its capital Tehran, were rocked by a series of attacks led by the US and Israel that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and the top leadership. According to reports, the military campaign coincided with cyber attacks targeting the country, one of which flooded a popular mobile app with information, amid a crackdown on Iran’s internet.

The strike came after days of failed talks between Tehran and Washington. The talks came after weeks of mass protests that have left thousands dead and are the country’s longest-running movement. Internet shutdown until now.

When missiles hit Iranian cities, people on the ground said they were flooded with information about a program they didn’t ask for — not from the ailing government, but from an outsider.

Users of the BadeSaba prayer program received several notifications on their phone, calling for “reckoning” and promising amnesty to anyone who opposes government forces, on Wired.

One of the messages said the Iranian government would “pay for the brutality and ruthlessness it has committed against the innocent people of Iran,” implying that the program had been hacked to show anti-government messages.

It is not known who is behind the hacking of the app, which records more than 5 million downloads.

The Jerusalem Post report on Saturday that cyberattacks were used as part of the attack on the US and Israel to limit Iran’s response. Both the US and Israel are suspected of engaging in cyber attacks on banks and crypto exchange pressure on Iran’s leadership, which has been in power since the 1989 revolution.

The ongoing disruption is not limited to Iran. The conflict threatens to spill over into the Middle East, with Iran retaliating with its own weapons.

Amazon said it was shut down at its Middle East data center in the United Arab Emirates shortly after Iranian missiles hit the coastal nation. Amazon said the ending it was caused by “things that affected the data center, which caused a fire and a fire.”

Argument can do that too disrupting the complex ecommerce air and sea routeswhile cargo ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz near Iran grind to a halt.

Doug Madory, director of web analytics at Kentik, said post on Bluesky that internet connectivity dropped to zero shortly after the plane crash in the country on Saturday morning. Networking giant Cloudflare has also confirmed Iran’s internet collapse on Saturday.