A wave of cyber-enabled operations occurred early Saturday alongside joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on targets in Iran, according to cybersecurity analysts.
Several Iranian news websites were hacked to display political messages, while BadeSaba, a religious calendar application with more than five million downloads, was compromised to show messages urging security forces to lay down their weapons.
Internet connectivity across Iran dropped sharply at multiple intervals on Saturday, according to Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, who cited network data in posts on X.
Cybersecurity experts said the attacks may be part of broader efforts to disrupt Iranian communications and government systems. The Jerusalem Post reported that operations targeted government services and military infrastructure, though Reuters said it could not independently verify the claims.
Rafe Pilling of Sophos said Iranian-aligned proxy groups and hacktivists could retaliate with cyberattacks targeting Israeli and U.S.-affiliated interests, potentially including distributed denial-of-service attacks or attempts to exploit older data breaches.
Although Iran is frequently cited by U.S. officials as a cyber threat alongside Russia and China, previous responses to attacks on its territory have been relatively limited.
