Iran faces internet blackout amid airstrikes and cyberattacks

On Saturday, cities across Iran, including the capital of Tehran, experienced a near-zero internet blackout following U.S. and Israel-led airstrikes. The military campaign killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei. According to reports, the military strikes by the U.S. and Israel coincided with cyberattacks targeting the country, which occurred alongside the severe drop in connectivity.

Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at Kentik, an internet analysis firm, reported that internet connectivity in the country dropped to near-zero levels soon after the airstrikes hit on Saturday morning. Cloudflare, a networking giant, also confirmed the collapse of Iran’s internet on Saturday.

The digital disruption also extended to consumer applications. The BadeSaba prayer app, which has more than 5 million downloads, was compromised by hackers who used the platform to display anti-government messaging. While it is not clear who is behind the hack of the app, users received unsolicited notifications on their phones. These notifications called for a reckoning and stated that the Iranian regime would pay for their cruel and merciless actions against the innocent people of Iran.

The geopolitical conflict has spilled into the wider Middle East, impacting critical infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates. Amazon, which operates a data center in the United Arab Emirates that experienced an outage, reported a disruption at its local facility. Amazon, the operator of the data center, stated that the outage was caused by “objects that struck the data center, creating sparks and fire.”

Beyond the immediate infrastructure damage, the conflict is likely to disrupt critical e-commerce air and sea routes. This instability threatens regional trade as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz near Iran faces potential disruption.

Why it matters

The escalation represents a significant shift in regional conflict, moving beyond traditional military engagement to include widespread digital infrastructure disruption. This instability threatens critical e-commerce routes through the Middle East.