Cyber and information operations intensify amid US-Israel strikes on Iran under “Operation Epic Fury”
US and Israeli military action against Iran under “Operation Epic Fury” has been accompanied by heightened cyber activity and public acknowledgment of offensive cyber operations. Reporting indicated a surge of pro-Iranian activity including DDoS attacks, attempted compromises, and targeting of critical infrastructure, with researchers warning that Iranian state-linked actors tied to the IRGC and MOIS, as well as aligned hacktivists, are likely to sustain retaliatory operations aimed at economic, reputational, and potentially physical disruption. Separately, reporting alleged Israeli intelligence conducted long-running surveillance by compromising Tehran traffic cameras, exfiltrating encrypted video and telemetry to servers outside Iran to build “pattern of life” intelligence on senior leadership movements.
The Pentagon also elevated the visibility of cyber as a warfighting domain, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs describing coordinated space and cyber effects used to “disrupt, degrade, and blind” Iranian communications and sensor networks, though without operational detail. In parallel but unrelated to the Iran conflict, Russia’s internet regulator Roskomnadzor and the Russian Defense Ministry reported a “complex multi-vector” DDoS incident that temporarily disrupted multiple government sites, with traffic attributed to botnets and servers across several countries and continued user-reported instability after initial containment.
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