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Iran is facing severe internet connectivity outages in the midst of its conflict with Israel, resulting in a large majority of the country being unable to connect online.
According to Cloudflare Radar, Iranian internet traffic dropped by an estimated 75 per cent after the government reportedly restricted access to all major websites, including Telegram.
Internet tracking firm NetBlocks has also said that the country is facing a “near-total national internet blackout”, while the IODA internet tracking firm recorded a drastic drop in internet traffic from 91.25 per cent to 3.52 per cent in less than two hours.
The Iranian government has a history of internet control and censorship, with prior bans to Telegram and WhatsApp. Following attacks by Israel on Iran, the nation restricted access to the internet, according to Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani.
“Given the enemy’s cyber attacks, it is natural that they are forced to slow down the internet speed at times to maintain network stability,” she said.
Iran has already faced a number of cyber attacks since the beginning of its conflict with Israel just days ago.
Earlier this week, Pro-Israel hackers claimed a cyber attack on Bank Sepah, one of the oldest financial institutions in Iran, with connections to both the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
According to Iranian news publication Iran International, Bank Sepah was experiencing widespread disruptions, with a number of branches closed, and customers unable to access their accounts. Cards issued by Kosar and Ansar, which are both linked to the Iranian military, were not functioning.
Now, Pro-Israeli hacking group Predatory Sparrow, also known as Gonjeshke Darande, claimed responsibility for the outages, citing a cyber attack.
“We, Gonjeshke Darande, conducted cyber attacks which destroyed the data of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Bank Sepah,” the group wrote on X.
“Bank Sepah was an institution that circumvented international sanctions and used the people of Iran’s money to finance the regime’s terrorist proxies, its ballistic missile program and its military nuclear program,” with the sanctions mentioned referring to those placed on the bank by the US in 2019 after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal it had with Iran, which would limit the Iranian nuclear program. In return, Iran would receive sanction relief.
“This is what happens to institutions dedicated to maintaining the dictator’s terrorist fantasies,” the threat actors said.
“We thank the brave Iranians whose help made this operation possible.”
Overnight, an Iranian crypto exchange, Nobitex, was also hacked, resulting in the loss of over US$90 million.
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