Hackers targeted an Orthodox Jewish news publication after US officials warned of Iran-aligned cyber-attacks when the war in the Mideast country got underway last month.
The website for Yeshiva World News featured an image of the late ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei standing with the later despot’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has been named the nation’s new leader, according to reports Wednesday.
“Now we are in control,” the menacing text read in Farsi, according to PIX 11, which reported the message also included an antisemitic epithet.
The site was later defaced with the message, “we will be back shortly thank you,” the news station reported.
By Thursday, the news outlet was back to normal. An email seeking comment from Yeshiva World News was not immediately returned.
While it’s not clear who carried out the sickening cyber-attacks, the Department of Homeland Security warned last month that Iran-aligned “hacktivists” would carry out “low-level cyber-attacks against US networks, such as website defacement and distributed denial-of-service attacks,” in response to Khamenei’s assassination, according to ABC News.
“Although a large-scale physical attack is unlikely, Iran and its proxies probably pose a persistent threat of targeted attacks in the Homeland, and will almost certainly escalate retaliatory actions—or calls to action—if reports of the Ayatollah’s death are confirmed,” according to the Feb. 28 DHS bulletin.
Social media and Telegram channels tied to Iranian hackers did not indicate any group taking responsibility, according to a review by the Jerusalem Post.
US and Israel launched airstrikes against the regime late last month, killing numerous top Tehran officials in their wave of attacks.
