Hackers and internet outages hit Iran amid U.S. air strikes

Source: TechCrunch

Early on Saturday, cities across Iran, including its capital Tehran, were rocked by a series of U.S. and Israel‑led airstrikes that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and top leadership. The military campaign coincided with cyberattacks targeting the country, one of which flooded a popular phone app with notifications amid an ongoing outage across the Iranian internet.

The strikes came after several days of failed negotiations between Tehran and Washington, which followed weeks of mass protests that saw thousands of people killed alongside the country’s longest internet shutdown to date.

App hack and unsolicited notifications

As missiles struck Iranian cities, users of the BadeSaba prayer app reported being flooded with unsolicited notifications — not from the ailing government, but from an apparent outsider.

Image Credits: Vahid Online (opens in a new window)

The notifications called for a “reckoning” and promised amnesty for anyone who rises up against government forces, according to Wired. One message warned that the Iranian regime would “pay for their cruel and merciless actions against the innocent people of Iran,” implying the app was compromised to display anti‑government messaging. The app lists more than 5 million downloads; the perpetrators of the hack remain unidentified.

Cyberattack claims linked to the strikes

The Jerusalem Post reported that cyberattacks were used as part of the U.S. and Israeli operations to limit Iran’s response. Both the U.S. and Israel have been suspected of conducting cyberattacks on Iranian banks (TechCrunch, 2025‑06‑17) and crypto exchanges (TechCrunch, 2025‑06‑18) to pressure Iran’s leadership, which has ruled since the 1989 revolution.

Infrastructure impact and broader disruptions

• Internet connectivity: Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, noted in a post on Bluesky that internet connectivity dropped to near‑zero levels soon after the airstrikes. Cloudflare also confirmed the collapse of Iran’s internet on Saturday.

  • Source: Bluesky post
  • Source: Cloudflare Radar tweet

• Amazon data center outage: Amazon reported an outage at its Middle East data center in the United Arab Emirates after Iranian missiles struck the coastal country. The outage was caused by “objects that struck the data center, creating sparks and fire.”

  • Source: AWS status page

• E‑commerce routes: The conflict threatens to disrupt critical e‑commerce air and sea routes, as ships carrying goods through the Strait of Hormuz near Iran grind to a halt.

  • Source: Bloomberg article

The ongoing disruption extends beyond Iran, raising concerns about broader regional instability as Iran retaliates with its own missile strikes.