Arrest of 'Hacker of Several Government Websites' by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Iranian news agencies, citing the 'Cyber Crime Investigation Center' affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have reported the arrest of a hacker involved with several government websites. The report claims that the arrested individual has been referred to judicial authorities. In a report released on Saturday, June 18, by several domestic news agencies, including Mehr and Tasnim, the 'Cyber Organized Crime Investigation Center' of the IRGC claimed that following 'media uproar' regarding the hacking of several government websites, it successfully identified and arrested the hacker of some of these sites through technical measures. The statement adds that the accused was active under the name 'Mafia Hacking Team' and has targeted 'a large number of domestic websites, including the website of the National Document Registration Organization, the Islamic Republic of Iran Post Company, and several universities.' According to this center, the arrested suspect had 'gained access to a lot of information' due to the 'security weaknesses' of these websites but 'refrained from implementing and stealing this information due to specific motives.' This comes despite the fact that at the time of the hacking of the National Document Registration Organization's website, the Deputy for Technology Development and Services of this organization stated that the site had been 'partially hacked and there was no intrusion or attack on banks and registration service systems.' The reports published by Mehr and Tasnim also acknowledge that despite the suspect being referred to judicial authorities, 'preliminary investigations into him are still on the agenda of the Cyber Organized Crime Investigation Center.' In recent weeks, multiple reports have emerged regarding the hacking of several Iranian government websites, but Iranian police officials attributed these actions to groups affiliated with the Saudi government. Among the attacks were hacks of several official websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including the websites of Iranian embassies in Argentina, Ukraine, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan, in mid-June. Tasnim, close to the IRGC, had declared 'Saudi-hired hackers' responsible for the hacking of these websites. The cyber attack on the official websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs occurred after the website of the Statistical Center of Iran was also targeted by hackers and was inaccessible for hours. On the evening of June 24, the Statistical Center of Iran's website was taken offline, and users were unable to access any sections of the site for a period. When searching for the term 'Statistical Center of Iran' in Google, an Arabic phrase appeared instead of the center's name, indicating that this website had been taken offline by 'ISIS hackers.' The center known as the 'Cyber Organized Crime Investigation Center' was established in 2007 as part of the 'Cyber Defense of the IRGC' and has, over the years, in addition to creating cases against several media activists and Iranian users in cyberspace, undertaken several projects to infiltrate social networks and identify Iranian users. In March 2015, this center claimed to have 'gained oversight' over eight thousand Facebook likes by monitoring Facebook users and their activities and has other projects concerning Instagram, Viber, and WhatsApp on its agenda. Recently, this center also reported the 'identification' of 170 individuals managing modeling pages on Instagram and claimed that legal cases had been formed against 29 individuals in this regard, with 8 arrested and the others summoned. In this context, the IRGC has taken action against Kim Kardashian and Iranian veiled women on the red carpet, 'Spider 2'; a project to prevent lifestyle influences on the political arena, 'forming legal cases' for managers of dozens of modeling pages on Instagram, the IRGC Cyber Center: 'We have gained oversight over 8 million likes on Facebook,' the IRGC: 'The most important elements promoting corruption on Facebook have been arrested,' the arrest of a 14-year-old hacker in Iran, the Freedom House report on internet freedoms: 'Iran is in the worst position,' the police: Cyber police have begun their work in Tehran.