Cyberattack Targets Iran Parliament Websites

A hacking group affiliated with the Iranian opposition Mojehadin-e-Khlaq Organization (MKO) seized documents and data from the Iranian parliament after hacking the servers of the official website in the latest cyberattack targeting public facilities.

Khane Mellat (ICANA.ir) news agency websites were also inaccessible and subject to a cyberattack.

A hacking group called "Uprising Till Overthrow" claimed credit for the cyberattack.

The group explained that it had accessed the websites of the Iranian parliament, the library, and the documentation and research center in the Iranian parliament, indicating that it had obtained information and documents.

During the first hours, the group published documents containing letters and salary records of 226 lawmakers, including a letter from the head of the Iranian Passive Defense Organization to the Speaker about the threats facing Iran's nuclear facilities.

The ILNA Labor Agency reported that hackers published pictures of the leaders of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq group on the Khane Mellat website.

The hacking of the Iranian parliament's website comes ten days before the legislative election scheduled for March 1.

The Public Relations Department of the Parliament confirmed that its websites had been subjected to electronic hacking and said in a statement that the technical team is investigating the disruption of the website and will announce the results later.

"The websites of the parliament and Khane Mellat (ICANA.ir) news agency have been hacked and become unavailable since this morning due to cyberattacks," the official IRNA news agency reported.

The statement said that the scale of the problem is under investigation by expert technical teams.

The statement referred to documents published moments after the site was hacked, saying the preliminary investigation of these images shows that some of these documents have been tampered with and cannot be verified.

Parliament suggested that the hackers obtained some documents during a "limited" hacking operation and "manipulated" them.

The statement cited the documents revealing the lawmakers' salaries, saying they include unrealistic final figures not found in parliament's documents.

Unpublished documents from the draft general budget included a copy of the passport of Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and correspondence with the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, and Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri.

The documents also included data from the protection team for the website, consisting of a rapid intervention force of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and a Basij unit.

In May last year, the group announced the hacking of 75 electronic servers from dozens of websites affiliated with the Foreign Ministry.

The group made available the data of many members of the Iranian diplomatic apparatus, including the data and pseudonyms.

The hackers published draft agreements and reports of phone calls conducted by former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the current Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.

Last December 26, the group published a document of recommendations regarding a meeting on Yemen, the peace path, and the international sanctions committee.

The group disseminated, via its Telegram channel, an unofficial draft of 44 pages, including the negotiations that President Ebrahim Raisi conducted in Damascus with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, last May.

Iran classifies the Mujahideen-e-Khalq group as a terrorist organization, and it is one of the leftist groups that participated in the 1979 revolution but later rejected the Supreme Leadership and announced its defection from the regime.

Iran accused the group of receiving Israeli support in carrying out cyberattacks.

An Iranian cyberattack on government facilities in Albania, where a large MKO group resides, led to a diplomatic rupture between Tehran and Tirana in September 2022.

Albania, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), thwarted a cyberattack, and as a result, the US imposed sanctions on the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and the minister, Esmaeil Khatib.

Spain has rejected a NATO proposal to spend 5% of GDP on defense needs that’s due to be announced next week, calling it “unreasonable.”

In a letter sent Thursday to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that Spain “cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP” at next week’s NATO summit in The Hague.

Most US allies at NATO are on track to endorse US President Donald Trump’s demand that they invest 5% of gross domestic product on their defense and military needs. In early June, Sweden and the Netherlands said that they aim to meet the new target, The AP news reported.

Spain was the lowest spender in the 32-nation military alliance last year, directing less than 2% of its GDP on defense expenditure.

In April, Sánchez said the government would raise defense spending by 10.5 billion euros ($12 billion) in 2025 to reach NATO’s previous target of 2% of GDP.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, NATO’s 32 allies agreed to spend at least 2% of GDP on their military budgets. But NATO plans for defending Europe and North America against a Russian attack require investment of at least 3%.

The aim now is to raise the bar to 3.5% for core defense spending on tanks, warplanes, air defense, missiles and hiring extra troops. A further 1.5% would be spent on things like roads, bridges, ports and airfields so armies can deploy more quickly, as well as preparing societies for possible attack.

Rutte had been due to table a new proposal on Friday aimed at satisfying Spain. European allies and Canada are keen to finalize the spending pledge before the summit, and not leave it open for any heated debate that might drag the meeting out. Poland and the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — have already publicly committed to 5%, and Rutte has said that most allies were ready to endorse the goal.

A big question still to be answered is what time-frame countries will get to reach the new spending goals. A target date of 2032 was initially floated, but Rutte has said that Russia could be ready to launch an attack on NATO territory by 2030.

Cyberattack Targets Iran Parliament Websites