Missiles go silent but Iran-Israel cyber war is just ramping up
A shadow war of mutual cyber-attacks between Iran and Israel has replaced missile fire and air strikes as a fragile truce holds, security experts told Iran International.
A shadow war of mutual cyber-attacks between Iran and Israel has replaced missile fire and air strikes as a fragile truce holds, security experts told Iran International.
"Although the Iran-Israel ceasefire has paused direct military engagement, cyber operations have intensified," Marwan Hachem, co-founder of FearsOff cybersecurity experts, told Iran International.
“Since the truce began, nearly 450 cyberattacks have been recorded against Israeli targets—many attributed to pro-Iran hacker groups,” he said.
Attacks on Iran's finance, infrastructure and energy complex, Hachem said, were fewer but more sophisticated and have been traced to actors linked to Israeli intelligence.
"Post-ceasefire, there are only about 10 known cyberattacks by pro-Israeli actors against Iran ... the fewer Israeli attacks tend to be more targeted and impactful.”
During the war, a pro-Israeli hacking group known as Predatory Sparrow claimed credit for a major cyberattack on Iran’s Bank Sepah.
The group also later said it had drained around $90 million from Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, adding it had posted Nobitex source code lists on X.
In spite of a ceasefire, however, the cyber war goes on.
“The era of silent digital aggression has arrived, and even allies may become targets in this murky domain of quiet offensives. The illusion of peace doesn’t extend to cyberspace. In fact, we expect cyber operations to grow more aggressive—only more covert. Silence is no indicator of safety.”
Daily attacks
Israeli cyber expert Boaz Dolev, from Clearsky Cyber Security, said there are daily attempts to hack small to medium sized businesses in Israel, and as yet, have not succeeded in attacking critical infrastructure.
“There is a lot of smoke all of the time. Iran didn’t disrupt Israel’s infrastructure by cyber-attacks but some Israeli companies were hacked and some sensitive information was leaked."
“We think they’ve breached dozens of Israeli companies, small to medium sized ones," Dolev added. "Most of them are providing services to large organizations in Israel so there is some sensitive information that was inside."
“They tried to do it by using vulnerabilities in computer systems, or sending it as phishing, but as much as I can say, they didn’t succeed most of the time. The ones they breached and hacked, they can start the destruction process, and some companies have had servers hacked and deleted.”
One cyber expert in Israel who asked not to be named, said Israel remains “much stronger than Iran in the cyber arena”.
“They can do whatever they want in Iran. The question is how they’re using the power and who you’re going to attack, when, and what will be the damage,” he added.
“This is why they decided to attack the financial system in Iran," the expert added. "It was a message for Iran that said the infrastructure is more vulnerable than they can imagine.”
The video shows two powerful blasts roughly a second apart just steps away from the main hospital in the Tajrish area, near the capital's bustling Qods Square.
One hits a building, sending a huge cloud of smoke up on the other side of the street, and another lands between cars at an intersection.
The second blast hurls the vehicles and a huge plume of smoke high into the air.
At the time of the explosions, around 15:30 local time on June 15, the street was busy with vendors, shoppers, metro passengers and traffic as many had still not left the capital for safer places.
Other videos of the incident posted earlier on social media showed extensive flooding caused by damage to a major water pipeline from the second blast, adding to the chaos. A three-year-old child reportedly drowned in the flood.
The 12-second footage, released on social media on Thursday, appears to be from a traffic surveillance camera.
The footage emphasized the harm endured by Iranian civilians apart from Israeli strikes which assassinated commanders and nuclear scientists and pummeled key military and nuclear facilities until a June 24 ceasefire.
Iran's health ministry reported 610 people were killed in the conflict and 4,746 injured.
Independent tallies put the toll higher—1,190 according to the US-based human rights group HRANA, which reported military deaths just above 400, with the rest either civilians or yet to be determined.
Verified
Some activists and social media users allege that the video was digitally manipulated or AI-generated.
However, Factnameh, an Iranian fact-checking website, and BBC both deemed the footage genuine, comparing it with other images from the area of the impact.
Victims
Iran reported 18 people killed, including a pregnant woman and her child, and 46 injured in the strike but has not released a full list of victims.
The Israeli military reported the killing of Brigadier General Mohammad Kazemi, chief of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, his deputy Brigadier General Hassan Mohaqeq, and military intelligence officer Mohsen Bagheri on the same day.
Iran confirmed their deaths but neither side has disclosed the exact location of their deaths.
Other incidents with high civilian casualties
On June 23, Israel launched several missiles at Tehran’s Evin Prison, calling the site a “tool of repression.”
Among the dead were two prison officials, Ruhollah Tavasoli and Vahid Heydarpour, as well as Evin's top prosecutor Ali Ghanaatkar. Dozens of detainees, medical staff, visiting families — including a young child — and even a bystander were also killed.
Another Israeli attack on June 24 in Astaneh Ashrafieh in northern Iran killed 16 people, most of them from the same extended family, and completely destroyed several homes.
The bombing targeted nuclear scientist Mohammad-Reza Sadighi, who had survived an earlier Israeli attack in Tehran but lost his 17-year-old son Hamidreza in the airstrike.