Spotify’s recent sudden downtime may have been political payback, not just a routine outage
Source: Android Authority
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Spotify suffered an hours‑long outage on Tuesday, May 12.
- Pro‑Iranian hacker group the 313 Team claimed responsibility.
- The group says the DDoS attack was revenge for the U.S. assassinating Iranian ruler Ali Khamenei.
Outage Overview
On May 12, many users found Spotify completely unusable. The service was down for several hours before being restored later that day. While outages are common, this incident appears to be linked to a politically motivated cyber‑attack.
Claim of Responsibility
A report from the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security notes that the 313 Team—a pro‑Iranian hacker organization—publicly claimed they carried out a massive DDoS attack against Spotify’s main servers. The claim was reported by Tech Radar and cited in the institute’s analysis.
- Source: McCrary Institute report
- Original coverage: Tech Radar article
Motivation Behind the Attack
The 313 Team stated that the attack was retaliation for the United States’ alleged assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in late February. They framed the outage as a response to what they described as an illegal U.S. military action against Iran, which they claim has caused widespread humanitarian and economic repercussions.
For further reading, see the original outage report on Android Authority: Spotify outage details.