“Some of the most aggressive efforts over the past week have been cyberattacks against major financial institutions in Iran and disinformation campaigns aimed at causing chaos and confusion in Israel.
A pro-Israeli hacking group known as Predatory Sparrow claimed credit for a cyberattack last week on Iran’s Bank Sepah, which caused widespread account issues for customers. The group also later claimed credit for draining around $90 million from Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and for posting stolen Nobitex source code lists on the social media platform X.
Hackers also targeted Iranian news stations. Videos circulated online appeared to show Iranian state TV broadcasting anti-regime messages last week.
The Iranian government shut down the nation’s internet in response to the attacks late last week, a blackout that was largely still ongoing on Sunday.
“Gaining control of the flow of information is certainly to be expected from the regime … they suspect that there is maybe an attempt to mobilize public attention,” Vatanka said.
Top Iranian officials and their security teams were also advised last week to stop using internet-connected devices, in particular telecommunication devices, to protect against potential Israeli disruptions. Last year, thousands of pagers used by the Iranian proxy militant group Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon, leaving thousands injured.
One reason Israel’s cyberattacks may have been more effective in this round of fighting is that Israel struck Iranian facilities first, giving it more time to prepare its offensive and defensive options before Iran could retaliate.
Iran and its proxy organizations are fighting back, albeit on a smaller scale. Israel’s National Cyber Directorate warned Israelis abroad on Saturday not to fill out forms on malicious websites that are seeking to gather intelligence on these individuals.
Gil Messing, chief of staff for Israeli cyber company Check Point Software, said Saturday just before the U.S. strikes that his company had tracked cyber and disinformation campaigns against Israel “escalating a bit,” though no new major attacks had been reported.
Messing said that there was a “flood of disinformation” pouring onto social media last week, including messages discouraging Israelis from entering shelters during attacks and erroneous texts about gas and supply shortages.
Israel’s civilian cyber defense agency warned that Iran was renewing its efforts to hack into internet-connected cameras for espionage purposes.
John Hultquist, chief analyst for Google Threat Intelligence Group, posted on X on Saturday shortly after the attacks that Iranian cyber forces usually use their “cyberattack capability for psychological purposes.”
“I’m most concerned about cyber espionage against our leaders and surveillance aided by compromises in travel, hospitality, telecommunications, and other sectors where data could be used to identify and physically track persons of interest,” Hultquist wrote.”
Not enough aid is reaching Gazans. A record number of UN employees have died trying to get aid to Gazans. What is Israel’s goal here? Why won’t Hamas surrender?
“Even if the regime falls, there’s no reason to be certain that something better will replace it, current and former officials warn. A failed, leaderless Iranian state could be a breeding ground for all sorts of new problems. A much more militarized autocracy also could take over, one unabashedly determined to obtain a nuclear weapon.
“History tells us it can always be worse,” Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. intelligence officer, wrote in an online analysis. “Israel might find itself in a perpetual, ongoing, and far more intense war that is no longer in the shadows, as it has been for years.”
Israel, however, may not be thinking that many steps ahead, argued one U.S. official who has long worked on the Middle East.
“I don’t think they care enough about what comes next as long as it’s too weak to threaten Israel,” the official said.”
“Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time. Its leaders seek to weaken and destroy free society, democracy and human rights with Russian and Chinese support. In Iran, women are systematically oppressed and abused. Homosexuals are murdered. Those who think differently are imprisoned and tortured. In Tehran, the cynical abuse of the civilian population in Gaza as human shields is also cold-bloodedly conceived and financed.
According to official state doctrine, the primary goal of the mullahs in Tehran is the annihilation of the State of Israel. Ayatollah Khamenei has described Israel as a “cancerous tumor.” And clocks in the streets of Tehran celebrate countdowns to the “destruction of Israel.”
But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. Radical Sunni and Shiite Islamism has been preparing for this for decades. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie, 9/11, the attacks in Paris, the caliphate of ISIS — each event was a warning sign. Only those who did not want to see the signs are surprised today. The attacks are directed against our values, our way of life.”
“At 5:30 a.m. on June 10, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tweeted a cryptic, three-minute video warning that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers” — and that the world is “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Trump saw the unauthorized video and became incensed, complaining to associates at the White House that she had spoken out of turn, according to three people familiar with the episode — two of them inside the administration and all granted anonymity to describe sensitive dynamics.”
“The big question, in other words, is whether Netanyahu has not set his sights on regime change. Whether his sights have not been blinkered by a new logic deriving from the manifest results of his own escalation — that Iran’s nuclear program and missile program are one; that given the danger to Israel merely from the missiles, leaving the Ayatollah’s regime in charge itself amounts to an existential threat.
“As we achieve our objective,” Netanyahu addressed Iranians on YouTube last Saturday, “we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your objective, your freedom.” On Monday, he told ABC News that killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would “not escalate the conflict but end the conflict.” How does one retreat from this logic any more than from the demand for total victory in Gaza?
Most vexing of all, why, under these circumstances, should the Iranian regime stop the war? It says it will be prepared to put enrichment back under international monitoring, as under the previous nuclear deal. But, for now, why capitulate?
Why not launch a dozen missiles every night, or every third night, keeping Israeli business depressed, our airspace closed, our sleep foiled — and watch us squirm? Why not tie up virtually the entire Israeli Air Force looking for missile development in a territory the size of Alaska and over four hours away? Why not deplete our reserves of anti-missile missiles that cost a couple of million dollars each?
True enough, the Israeli Air Force has destroyed a great many missile manufacturing sites. More damage will be inflicted. But destroy Iran’s very capacity to produce missiles? Does not the Iranian regime, too, see itself in a war for survival — a “war,” at any rate, according to the Supreme Leader — and does it not have the resources to sustain a war economy?
Finally, will Bibi, of all people, the leader in charge of Gazan carnage, bring Iranians to overthrow their government? Israel has now killed over 200 Iranian citizens by going after human “nuclear infrastructure” in various residential complexes. Just because ordinary people disdain the regime, that does not mean they welcome Israelis buzzing their neighborhoods, blowing up every economic asset from which the regime’s missile program could conceivably profit from. Even some people who may “not agree with the Establishment,” the journalist Abas Aslani told CNN on Monday, agree that Israel must be answered with “a crushing response.””