Facebook stop Iranian hackers spying on United States

Facebook announced that they have discovered gang of Iranian hackers on their platform who were targeting members of US military. The group has been named as "Tortoiseshell" and previously known for targeting information technology companies in Middle East. In this case Facebook has said that group has "used various malicious tactics to identify its targets and infect their devices with malware to enable espionage". 

This is very serious as Facebook has said that this is was a "persistent operation" part of a "cross-platform cyber espionage operation"...how does the Islamic Republic have the money for this?! People are protesting lack of water and internet blackouts across the country and yet they can spend wasteful money on people being sat on social media all day spying on people? Surely they should address their own internal problems before casting an eye overseas?

Read for yourself: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/07/taking-action-against-hackers-in-iran/ 

Iran transport hacked!

According to reports Iranian train and railway was hacked on friday and caused chaos across the country. Hackers posted messages on to departure boards saying that trains were either cancelled or delayed when in fact they were not. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so we do not know if they are criminal or activist but they had a humor when they also posted the phone number of Ayatollah Khamenei as information services for the trainline.

In addition to this breach the transport ministry also suffered from a cyber attack on saturday when hackers disrupted portal servers. Telecommunication minister Jahromi has also warned of further attacks if vulnerabilities are not patched however how can people and organizations do this when the electricity keeps turning off! It is a flawed system!

Now we must wait to see who takes responsibility for this attack. Is it too much of a coincidence that these two attacks happened so close together or was it the same actor? I will wait and see.

Power Outages Across Iran

Catastrophic power outages have taken place across Iran but this should not surely come as a surprise to many. It happen every year because of the corruption and bad governance but this year is particularly bad because of corona pandemic. And who is there to blame? Rouhani doesn't care because he is leaving and Raisi is corrupt too. Those in charge of health and electricity do not want to hear criticism either.

I worry about my friends still in Iran who must surely be suffering under the power outages. Can they get hospital treatment if they fall ill ? Surely not if you believe the videos being shared online of the people dying in CCU wards because of lack of electricity.

What has caused this hell? Some blame cryptocurrency mining for taking up all the electricity store from the people of Iran. The Islamic Republic uses cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to avoid sanction but is it really worth it? What is point of having more illegal money if the people still suffer and die? The government banned this currency mining but it is unclear if it still going on especially as some reports suggest that government is investigating the possibility of a national cryptocurrency. This must take a lot of energy and could be an explanation for Iran's sudden surge in electricity usage compared to last year.

Others blame poor governance and corruption. Surely we do not need evidence at this point because it is so obvious and while politicians deny that there is an issue there is no end in sight.