The Israeli government has urged its citizens to turn off their home security cameras, claiming that Iran is eavesdropping on Israeli security cameras to gather real-time information about attacks.
The Israel-Iran war has seen a surge in cyberattacks, with
Israeli Officials Warn Iran Is Hijacking Security Cameras to Spy - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-20/iran-hijacking-home-security-cameras-to-spy-within-israel
Iran's State TV Hijacked Mid-Broadcast Amid Geopolitical Tensions; $90M Stolen in Crypto Heist
https://thehackernews.com/2025/06/irans-state-tv-hijacked-mid-broadcast.html
Around the third week of June 2025, Refael Franco, a former deputy director of Israel's cybersecurity authority and currently the owner of a cybersecurity company, appeared on public radio and warned, 'We know that over the past few days, Iran has been connecting to Israeli surveillance cameras to understand what happened when ballistic missiles were launched and where the missiles landed, in order to improve their accuracy. Please turn off your home surveillance cameras or change your passwords.'
Some photos of Israeli impact sites have been circulated on social media, but the Israeli government has officially restricted their release. This suggests that civilian security cameras may be used to gather real-time information on the enemy. An Israeli official said, 'We are seeing Internet-connected cameras increasingly being targeted in Iran's war plans. We have seen these attempts during the war, but new attempts are beginning.'
There are precedents for hostile forces using surveillance cameras for espionage. According to Gaby Portnoy, former head of Israel's cybersecurity agency, Hamas, a resistance group against Israel, hacked thousands of cameras from both public and private institutions to collect information ahead of its October 2023 invasion. After Hamas' attack, the Israeli government issued a non-binding directive urging citizens to 'strengthen the information security of personal security cameras.'
Google reports that Iran is stepping up cyber activities to shape anti-Israel public opinion behind the Israel-Hamas war - GIGAZINE
In addition, according to a cybersecurity advisory jointly issued by the US National Security Agency and Western intelligence agencies in May 2025, Russia is likely to have tracked the movement of goods after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by using access to civilian cameras installed in key locations such as border checkpoints, military facilities, and train stations. It has also been found that Russian actors have used legitimate municipal services such as traffic surveillance cameras.
The threat of cyber attacks is not only occurring on the Israeli side, but also on the Iranian side. Cases such as the theft of over 13 billion yen from Iran's largest virtual currency exchange by a pro-Israeli hacker group under the pretense of sanctions for contributing to terrorism, and a cyber attack on Iran's largest state-owned bank, Sepah Bank, have been reported.
Pro-Israeli hacktivist group 'Predatory Sparrow' claims responsibility for cyber attack on Iranian state-run Sepah Bank - GIGAZINE
Furthermore, on the night of June 18, 2025 local time, an Iranian state-run television station was hacked. Normal programming was interrupted and a video calling for street protests against the Iranian government was broadcast instead. The perpetrator is unknown, but is believed to be a force with ties to Israel.
'The Israel-Iran conflict of 2025 is a clear example of modern hybrid warfare, where information and manipulation are as important elements of combat as bombs and missiles,' said Pascal Geenens, director of threat intelligence at cybersecurity firm Radware.
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in Security, Posted by log1e_dh