Hacktivist Group Targets Iran’s Government Organization

Iranian hacktivist group ‘Uprising till Overthrow' says it has hacked the website and portals of Iran’s Islamic Culture and Communication Organization. 

The hacking group, reportedly affiliated with the Albania-based opposition Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) group, said on Sunday that they put photos of the leaders of the group Massoud and Maryam Rajavi on the organization’s website.

The website of the organization, run under the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, is down at the moment, therefore it is not clear for how long it was displaying photos of the MEK leaders and slogans in support for the group. 

The hacktivist group said that it has also disabled six websites and systems, 44 servers and two internal administrative systems of the state organization. 

In a video released by the hackers, they claimed they have obtained 200,000 documents, including letters and directives from secret correspondence with the president’s office, identities of the organization’s employees abroad, and list of the incomes of its personnel. 

In early June, the group hacked into and deactivated over 5,000 surveillance cameras and 150 websites and online services of Tehran Municipality.

Last week, a hacking group called Predatory Sparrow targeted three of Iran’s major steel plants by a cyberattack, purportedly forcing one of them to halt production.

The Sunday cyberattack came a few days after Israel -- which is widely believed to have waged cyber war against Iran's nuclear facilities and other infrastructure -- confirmed that an Iranian hacker group has recently targeted several travel booking sites of an Israeli company and stolen personal information of more than 300,000 Israelis.