Iranian media is claiming that the US used backdoors and/or botnets to disable networking equipment during the current war, and Chinese state media is dining out on the allegations.
Reports from Iran claim hardware made by Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, and MikroTik either rebooted or disconnected during recent attacks on Iran – despite the regime disconnecting the nation from the global internet. The reports suggest that’s only possible because someone – probably the US – can sabotage the equipment at will. The report linked to above hypothesizes that a hidden backdoor in firmware or bootloader allows remote attacks at a pre-determined time or can be activated by a signal from a satellite.
Read more…
Source: The Register News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Amazon Web Services data centres in the Middle East hit by Iran strikes
March 3, 2026
Amazon Inc has said two Amazon Web Services data centres in the United Arab Emirates were hit by drone strikes, with another facility in Bahrain damaged by a nearby attack, as Iran retaliated to the strikes by the US and Israel. AWS said the strikes caused “structural damage” and “disrupted power” to its infrastructure. It warned ...
- Hacked traffic cams and hijacked TVs: How cyber operations supported the war against Iran
March 3, 2026
On Saturday, U.S. and Israeli jets began a bombing campaign against Iran, killing its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several senior government officials. The attacks also hit military and civilian targets all across the country, including a girls’ school, where at least 168 children and adults were killed. After a few days of conflict, multiple reports, ...
- US using cyber warfare to fracture Islamic regime from within its ranks
March 1, 2026
The United States is using cyber operations not only to disrupt Iran’s military capabilities but to pressure senior regime officials to defect, a former top commander of US Cyber Command told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, describing an information warfare campaign aimed at accelerating regime change from within. Using information warfare, Lt. Gen. Charles L. Moore Jr. ...
- US Military Used Anthropic AI to Crunch Intel and Pick Targets in Iran Strike, Despite Trump’s Ban
March 1, 2026
The US military reportedly used Anthropic’s Claude AI during a major strike in the Middle East against Iran, just hours after US President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using the technology. According to WSJ, officials say the AI helped with intelligence analysis, spotting potential targets, and running ‘what-if’ battle scenarios. Even though Trump had ...
- China remains embedded in US energy networks ‘for the purpose of taking it down’
February 17, 2026
Three new threat groups began targeting critical infrastructure last year, while a well-known Beijing-backed crew – Volt Typhoon – continued to compromise cellular gateways and routers, and then break into US electric, oil, and gas companies in 2025, according to Dragos’ annual threat report published on Tuesday. Dragos specializes in operational technology (OT) security, and as ...
- ISA warns of increasing cyber attacks against Israeli officials
February 11, 2026
The ISA and the National Cyber Directorate announced on Wednesday that they thwarted hundreds of cyberattack attempts over the past year carried out by Iranian intelligence operatives. According to the agencies, the attacks targeted senior government and defense officials, academics, journalists, and employees in the defense industry. A joint statement said a marked escalation in hostile ...