News: 0178081501

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Iran Is Going Offline To Prevent Purported Israeli Cyberattacks

(Tuesday June 17, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD) from the drastic-times-call-for-drastic-measures dept.)


In response to escalating tensions with Israel, Iran has [1]begun throttling internet access , with plans to disconnect from the global internet entirely to prevent Israeli cyberattacks. The Iranian government also urges citizens to delete WhatsApp -- one of the country's most popular messaging platforms -- claiming without evidence that the Meta-owned app has been weaponed by Israel to spy on its users. (WhatsApp vehemently denied those claims in a statement to the [2]Associated Press .) Telegram is also said to be blocked as well. The Verge reports:

> The announcements come amidst the escalating war between Iran and Israel, which broke out after Israel attacked the country on June 12th, and a rise in reported internet outages. Civilians have claimed that they've been unable to access basic but critical telecommunications services, such as messaging apps, maps, and sometimes the internet itself. Cloudflare reported that two major Iranian cellular carriers effectively went offline on Tuesday, and [3]The New York Times reports that even VPNs, which Iranians frequently use to access banned sites like Facebook and Instagram, have become increasingly harder to access. [...]

>

> Israel's role in the cyber outages has not been officially confirmed, but independent analysts at NetBlocks noticed [4]a significant reduction of internet traffic originating from Iran on Tuesday, starting at 5:30 PM local time. According to Tasnim, a news network affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Iranians will still have access to the country's state-operated national internet service, though two Iranian officials told the Times that the internal bandwidth could be reduced by up to 80 percent.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/politics/688875/iran-cutting-off-internet-israel-war

[2] https://apnews.com/article/iran-whatsapp-meta-israel-d9e6fe43280123c9963802e6f10ac8d1

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/17/world/israel-iran-trump#the-internet-across-iran-is-being-disrupted-experts-and-iranians-say

[4] https://x.com/netblocks/status/1935012084938330209



Re: (Score:2)

by ls671 ( 1122017 )

Probably exactly this! It's not like the Mossad relies exclusively on local to Iran Internet access to communicate. Hey didn't I hear the Elon restored Starlink access to Iran lately or have I dreamt it? Might he have restored for Mossad? Anyway, all kinds of possibilities.

Re: (Score:1)

by rta ( 559125 )

> The regime just doesn't want the people organizing and rising up to overthrow them.

Well, even before that they don't want people to get external news and hear just how badly the regime is having its ass handed to it right now.

The IRGC has started putting out Baghdad Bob style statements about how they've achieve control of Israeli air-space and stuff.

Side effects (Score:2)

by dskoll ( 99328 )

Side effects may include silencing of Iranian dissidents.

Re: Side effects (Score:1)

by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )

Well if the beatings don't do the job...

Re: (Score:2)

by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 )

A person who isn't interested in checking the facts is orders of magnitude better controlled than a person who can't.

Let's take a moment and ponder (Score:2)

by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

What the middle east would be like today had we not over thrown the shah back in 1953. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

Re: (Score:2)

by Mononymous ( 6156676 )

Your link doesn't describe what you think it does.

That coup strengthened the shah's authority rather than overthrowing him.

It was the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah.

Iran goes off line to control its people (Score:2, Troll)

by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 )

Iran doesn't give one fuck if the people of Iran get hacked. The Iranian tyrants realize that the internet will allow people to organize, kill their tyrants, and liberate themselves. The ayatollahs are evil cowards. I can't wait for Israel to give them their just desserts, but I'd prefer the Iranian people do the job for themselves.

Just pick up the phone and give modem connect sounds. "Well you said we should get more lines so we don't have voice lines."