Cyberwarfare in Iran

Cyberwarfare in Iran is a part of Iran's “Soft war” military strategy. Being both a victim and wager of cyberwarfare, Iran is considered an emerging military power in the field.

Since November 2010, an organization called “The Cyber Defense Command” (Gharargah-e Defa-e Saiberi) has been operating in Iran under the supervision of the country’s “Passive Civil Defense Organization” (Sazeman-e Padafand-e Gheyr-e Amel) which is itself a subdivision of the Joint Staff of Iranian Armed Forces.

According to a 2014 report by Institute for National Security Studies, Iran is "one of the most active players in the international cyber arena". In 2013, a Revolutionary Guards general stated that Iran has “the 4th biggest cyber power among the world’s cyber armies.”

Attacks against Iran
In June 2007, Iran was the victim of a cyber-attack when its nuclear facility in Natanz was infiltrated by the cyber-worm ‘Stuxnet’. Reportedly a combined effort by the United States and Israel, Stuxnet destroyed perhaps over 1000 nuclear centrifuges and, according to a Business Insider article, "[set] Tehran's atomic programme back by at least two years." The worm spread beyond the plant to allegedly infect over 60,000 computers, but the government of Iran indicates it caused no significant damage. Iran crowdsourced solutions to the worm and is purportedly now better positioned in terms of cyber warfare technology. No government has claimed responsibility for the worm.

Assassination
In October 2013, media reported Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the "Cyber War Headquarters" was found dead wounded by bullets in Karaj.

Attacks by Iran
The Iranian government has been accused by western analysts of its own cyber-attacks against the United States, Israel and Persian Gulf Arab countries, but deny this, including specific allegations of 2012 involvement in hacking into American banks. The conflict between Iran and the United States as been called "history’s first known cyber-war" by Michael Joseph Gross mid-2013.

events

 * 🇮🇱 August 2014: An IDF official told press in that Iran has launched numerous significant attacks against Israel’s Internet infrastructure.
 * 🇹🇷 31 March 2015: Iranian hackers, possibly Iranian Cyber Army pushed a massive power outage for 12 hours in 44 of 81 provinces of Turkey, holding 40 million people. Istanbul and Ankara were among the places suffering blackout.
 * 🇬🇧 June 2017: The Daily Telegraph reported that intelligence officials concluded that Iran was responsible for a cyberattack on the British Parliament lasting 12 hours that compromised around 90 email accounts of MPs. The motive for the attack is unknown but experts suggested that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could be using cyberwarfare to undermine the Iran nuclear deal.