Cyber Warfare tactics increasingly used in Iran conflict

+ Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music The Best Music of 2025 All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Music Features Live Sessions Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Planet Money Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop The Best Music of 2025 All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Music Features Live Sessions About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Cyber warfare tactics increasingly used in Iran conflict Cyber warfare is coming out of the shadows in the Iran war, from hacking phone apps to recruiting agents online to embracing AI as a weapon. Middle East Cyber warfare tactics increasingly used in Iran conflict March 10, 20264:04 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Daniel Estrin Cyber Warfare tactics increasingly used in Iran conflict Listen &middot; 3:53 3:53 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5741726/nx-s1-9681301" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Cyber warfare is coming out of the shadows in the Iran war, from hacking phone apps to recruiting agents online to embracing AI as a weapon. Sponsor Message LEILA FADEL, HOST: Cyber warfare is coming out of the shadows in the Iran war. The U.S., Israel and Iran are spying, hacking and trying to deceive each other. NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv has this report.

+ DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: The U.S. military's very first move in the Iran war was in cyberspace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine told reporters. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) DAN CAINE: Coordinated space and cyber operations effectively disrupted communications and sensor networks across the area of responsibility, leaving the adversary without the ability to see, coordinate or respond effectively. ESTRIN: Israel hacked Tehran's traffic cameras to track the Iranian supreme leader's moves before killing him. That's according to a senior Israeli defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Israel's cyber methods. As the Financial Times reported, Israel synthesized that footage and billions of data points to create a bank of targets in Iran. NPR has not independently confirmed that. Omer Benjakob is a cybersecurity reporter for the Israeli paper Haaretz. OMER BENJAKOB: Israel used or very likely used very cutting-edge kind of data processing or big data fusion techniques that from a kind of layman or citizen perspective you would call AI. ESTRIN: He believes Israel's military is developing its own independent AI systems to avoid the kind of clash happening now with the Trump administration, as the company Anthropic has tried to limit how the U.S. military uses its AI model, Claude, during war. BENJAKOB: We need to, at least at some level, to be able to do some of this stuff independently because one day someone will discover we also use Claude. And then there will be a protest in San Francisco. And then they'll take Claude away from us. So we might as well just have our own version of Claude. ESTRIN: Then there's psychological cyber warfare. Israeli authorities say Iran has recruited dozens of Israeli nationals over the Telegram messaging app in the last couple of years. Most of them paid to stir up strife in Israeli society, like to start random fires or write anti-government graffiti. Benjakob the journalist believes Iran recruited Israelis to threaten him after he reported on fake social media accounts Iran was running in Israel. BENJAKOB: My wife got to her office a package with, like, a Jewish memorial candle. And I got some message, like, via WhatsApp telling me that if I don't stop what I'm doing, my wife will have to use this candle. So what we're seeing in Israel a lot is just people being tapped to kind of continue Iran's digital war against Israel in physical means. ESTRIN: Israel does psychological cyber warfare, too. The senior official who spoke with NPR said Israel hacked a popular Muslim prayer app in Iran at the start of the war and sent messages calling on soldiers to defect. He said, after Israel bombed the notorious Evin prison in Iran last year, Israel sent videos of that bombing to Iranian officials to intimidate them. Israel also tried to trick Iran before launching the current war. Former military official Doron Hadar was a part of Israel's influence operations until recently. DORON HADAR: What usually you are doing is try to influence the thinking of the rival entity to let him think that the moment is not coming soon. ESTRIN: So white noise tactics were deployed against Iran, the current defense official told NPR. He said U.S. war planes were parked in southern Israel to distract from the covert Air Force attack that was being prepared from northern Israel. And the night the war was launched, he said, Israeli army generals didn't park their cars in their normal parking spaces at military headquarters, old-school deception in a high-tech war. Daniel Estrin NPR News Tel Aviv. Copyright &copy; 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor MessageBecome an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{1167:function(e,n,c){e.exports=c(323)},323:function(e,n,c){"use strict";c.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([c.e(1),c.e(2),c.e(3),c.e(4),c.e(84)]).then(function(e){c(3),c(1140),c(116),c(94),c(52),c(493),c(239),c(102),c(104),c(1141),c(143),c(1142),c(238),c(48),c(1143)}.bind(null,c)).catch(c.oe)}},[[1167,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();