Tehran Prosecutor: Whistleblower of Irancell Subscribers' Information Arrested

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the public and revolutionary prosecutor of Tehran, announced on Tuesday, July 15, the arrest of a "hacker" who, according to this judicial authority, was publishing the information of Irancell subscribers on Telegram. According to Fars News Agency, the public prosecutor stated that the "offending individual" was arrested on Sunday, July 13, and his case has been sent to the relevant court. Last Saturday, Hossein Ramazani, the legal and international deputy of the Cyber Police of Iran, told Mehr News Agency that following a complaint from the operator, the Cyber Police was looking for the "disseminator of information of 20 million Irancell subscribers." Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi also mentioned that the issue of Irancell subscribers' information being compromised dates back to about two and a half years ago. Mahmoud Vaezi, the Minister of Communications, who was summoned to the parliament last Sunday to explain the re-disclosure of Irancell mobile subscribers' information, emphasized that "the leaked information was disclosed by a rogue individual in one of the organizations and is not new." However, the Minister did not name the "organization" that had this information and from where it leaked, nor did he mention why the subscribers' information was provided to this "organization." The newspaper Etelaat, published in Tehran, reported last Saturday that Irancell subscribers encountered a Telegram bot last Thursday that, upon entering an Irancell phone number, would provide private information of the number's owner, such as name, surname, national ID, city of residence, home address, and postal code. Reports indicate that this bot was active for about 20 hours and provided information for the area codes 0935 to 0939 of Irancell upon request from subscribers. Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi stated that the person who designed the bot to republish Irancell subscribers' information was residing in "one of the counties." According to the public prosecutor, "the individual stated during investigations that he extracted and received Irancell subscribers' information through one of the groups he was a member of and designed a bot to hack the subscribers' information." Jafari Dolatabadi criticized that "no preventive measures or actions are being taken by some operators" in light of the history of such actions and their recurrence in recent years. This judicial authority emphasized the need for necessary actions to prevent the re-disclosure of such information, stating that "otherwise, the responsibility and consequences will fall on the operators." Meanwhile, the public relations office of Irancell issued a statement regarding these events following the disclosure of its subscribers' information and the Minister's explanations in parliament. The statement emphasized that the company "has never and under no circumstances provided its information to unauthorized parties, and unlike some operators, has refrained from providing subscribers' information to licensed advertising companies, even at the cost of significant revenue." Another part of this statement also emphasized that "the information systems and subscribers' information of Irancell have never been disclosed, stolen, hacked, or compromised and have not been made available to unauthorized parties." However, Irancell did not address the cause and manner of the leak of information of its 20 million subscribers on the Telegram network in this statement. 20 million accounts represent about 75% of Irancell's total subscribers. In this context, several websites affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were "hacked," and the arrest of "the hacker of several government websites" by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was reported. The Cyber Crime Center stated that the arrested hacker did not have criminal motives.