Multiple different hacker groups are leveraging the popular platforms Telegram and Signal to aid anti-government protestors in Iran. Iranian citizens have lost full access to the internet and are instead suffering from outages and regime restrictions. The hackers are also utilizing dark web tools to circumvent these restrictions. Check Point Research has released information regarding this recent development, which comes weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young women who was arrested for violating laws that required women to wear a headscarf. Amini reportedly died while in police custody.
Check Point stated that groups are assisting the protestors in figuring out how to bypass the restrictions and censorships, which have been enacted by the Iranian Regime as a method of dealing with the protests and attempting to prevent information from getting in or out of the country. Hacker groups have been witnessed by the security agency allowing people to communicate with each other despite the restrictions. Some of these activities include data leaking and selling, as well as sharing maps of sensitive locations. Two major Telegram groups have been identified, the first focusing on leaking data that can help aid the struggle against the regime and the second providing news and updates from the protests.
Read More: Hackers Use Telegram and Signal to Assist Protestors in Iran
