Iran-based hackers supporting the Islamic Republic continue to enable ransomware attacks against organizations in the US, Azerbaijan Republic, Israel, and the UAE, US intelligence services warned.
In a joint report released on Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) warned that Iran-backed hackers continued their attacks in August against organizations in the US and other countries, including Israel, Azerbaijan, and the UAE.
According to the report, sectors such as education, finance, healthcare, defense, and local government agencies in the US were targeted by hackers based in Iran.
The FBI assessed that a significant portion of these hackers' operations aimed to gain access to networks for ransomware activities. They also attempted to infiltrate computer networks to steal sensitive data from organizations in Israel and Azerbaijan.
The report comes less than a week after Meta said it had identified possible hacking attempts on WhatsApp accounts of US officials from the administrations of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, blaming the same Iranian hacker group revealed earlier this month to have compromised Donald Trump's campaign.
The Trump campaign said earlier this month that its internal communications, including sensitive vice-presidential vetting files, were hacked in a breach they believe was orchestrated by Iranian hackers.
Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations dismissed the reports as “lacking credibility," denying any intention to interfere in the US presidential election.
Despite the denial, Tehran’s cyber warfare strategy has in recent years evolved into a sophisticated operation aimed at undermining the US political process and sowing chaos.
On August 8, the US announced a $10 million reward for information leading to the identification or whereabouts of six Iranian government hackers accused of carrying out cyberattacks on US water utilities last fall. The State Department emphasized its commitment to tracking down these suspects and holding them accountable.
The recent incidents are not isolated cases but part of a series of aggressive moves by Iranian cyber actors, including groups linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to infiltrate and influence US elections.
Ali Sharifi-Zarchi, a former member of the bioinformatics and AI Faculty of the Sharif Industrial University, took to X Monday to announce that the decision to allow him to teach again after a year has been finalized.
When asked about Sharifi-Zarchi’s case by Mehr News Agency on Monday, the university’s chancellor, Abbas Mousavi neither confirmed nor denied his reinstatement but promised to comment in the coming days.
Sharifi-Zarchi backed dissident students during the months-long nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. He also disclosed that authorities were recruiting politically "endorsed" academics to replace critical academics. Thousands of students and alumni of the university signed a petition in his support.
The return of tens of purged academics is one of the major popular demands that the newly established government of the pro-reform Masoud Pezeshkian and its minister of science, research, and technology (higher education), Hossein Simaei Sarraf are facing.
Simaei-Sarraf, 56, is a lawyer, politician, and university professor who served as the Cabinet Secretary in Hassan Rouhani’s administration between 2019 and 2021.
The Islamic Association of Students at Sharif Industrial University published an open letter to the new minister on Monday, reminding him of his promise to “restore the dignity of academia.” They urged him to reinstate the dismissed professors and take steps to reconcile with them.
The new minister on Tuesday sacked a hardliner faculty dean at Allameh Tabatabei University for calling Mahsa Amini “a Kurdish Sunni girl who went six feet under” in a derogatory tone in a recent interview with the state-run television (IRIB).
Amini’s death in custody of morality police for hijab sparked nationwide protests that lasted for several months.
Ardeshir Entezari’s tone angered many Iranians including the Kurdish and Sunni minority groups.
The government of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi purged tens of prominent professors and lecturers in the summer of 2023. Some were sacked, some were forced to retire early, and others were refused a renewal of their contracts. The government also installed hardliners in most universities as chancellors.
The purge in academia began after the protests, but Mohsen Borhani, a professor of criminal law at Tehran University, told the reformist daily Etemad at the time that the Raisi administration had decided to eliminate dissident professors shortly after he took office in August 2021.
Borhani was among the professors purged last year because he had used social media to criticize the execution of four young protesters a few months after Amini’s death.
The purge of academia has a long history in the Islamic Republic that a few months after the Revolution of 1979 launched a “cultural revolution” and shut down universities for nearly three years to purge thousands of professors and students.
In August 2023, the reformist Etemad newspaper published a list of around 157 tenured professors dismissed, forced into retirement, or banned from teaching for their dissenting views since 2006.
The purge was widely attributed to President Ebrahim Raisi’s ultra-hardliner allies who aimed to assert their dominance in the political arena by ousting other politicians, officials, and academics.
Hardliners denied the allegations that purging academics was based on their political beliefs. Instead, they accused those dismissed of “moral issues” and some had been sued by students over “ethical matters”.
A similar purge affected thousands of school principals and even clerics in seminaries during a process that came to be called “purification”.
Following Khamenei's 2021 directive, the Rejuvenation of the Population and Protection of the Family (RPPF) law was enacted, banning the provision and education of contraceptives in health centers across Iran. The law criminalizes the use of contraceptives, prohibits sterilization, and imposes harsh restrictions on pregnancy screening, despite risks to maternal and infant health.
Khamenei's obsession with increasing Iran's population, to avoid an aging demographic crisis, has led to policies that disregard the well-being of women and children, experts say. During a Tuesday meeting with President Masoud Pezeshkian and his cabinet, Khamenei issued a series of directives, with a particular focus on the so-called "danger of early population aging." He singled out the newly appointed Minister of Health, Mohammadreza Zafarghandi—who received the lowest vote of confidence in parliament—to ensure enforcement of these policies.
Under the RPPF, all forms of contraceptive distribution, including free and subsidized options, have been halted, and any recommendation for their use has been criminalized. The law also bans pregnancy screenings unless parents explicitly request them or a gynecologist deems them necessary, but even then, stringent conditions apply. As a result, government support and insurance for pregnancy screenings have been withdrawn, leaving women, particularly in rural areas, vulnerable to forced pregnancies and birth complications.
Despite the ministry of health's statement that no increase in fetal abnormalities has been reported following the reduction of 200,000 pregnancy screenings in three years, independent reports paint a more alarming picture. Etemad newspaper in Tehran and Iran International have highlighted the rise in chromosomal disorders and the birth of an estimated 180,000 disabled and genetically impaired infants due to such policies.
Iran's population growth rate has plummeted to 0.6 percent from 1.23 percent just two years ago, a stark contrast to the 4.21 percent rate seen in 1984. Yet, Khamenei remains fixated on increasing the population to 150 million by 2050, ignoring the profound human cost of his policies. This relentless push for population growth, at the expense of individual rights and health, reveals the Islamic Republic's disregard for the welfare of its citizens, particularly women and children, in its pursuit of ideological goals.
To bypass these sanctions, Iran rebrands much of its oil exports to China through international brokers, particularly from Iraq, Oman, the UAE, and Malaysia, delivering it to private and small Chinese refineries known as "teapots" under the guise of these countries. The record-breaking export of 1.53 mb/d of Malaysian oil to China is particularly noteworthy, as it is three times Malaysia's total oil production.
Although this method has increased Iran's daily oil exports from around 350,000 barrels in 2019 to 1.5 million barrels this year, the costs of circumventing sanctions for Iran have also been significant. The volume of oil exports and Iran's customs data on oil revenues indicate that last year, one-fifth of the country's oil revenue was lost in the process of bypassing sanctions, and this year, the loss of oil revenue has been over 11%.
Last year, Iran offered a discount of $13 per barrel on its oil exports, and this year, the discount is $6. The reason for the reduced discount on Iranian oil is that Russia is selling its oil to China at nearly market prices, whereas last year, it offered even greater discounts than Iran.
In addition to discounts, a substantial amount is also wasted in carrying out the illicit shipments through intermediaries, but it is difficult to be certain about the amount. Some have said in the past that perhaps close to half the oil export price is lost due to discounts and expenses.
Bloomberg recently reported that "Iranian Light was last offered at a discount of $6 a barrel to ICE Brent," compared to a discount of less than $1 for comparable crude from Russia.
China's imports from Malaysia totaled 35.68 million tons in the first seven months of the year, an increase of 21% year-on-year.
In addition to offering discounts to Chinese refineries, Iran conducts ship-to-ship transfers of its oil in the oceans and is forced to keep tens of millions of barrels of its oil stored on water, eventually sending the oil to China through brokers and changing the ownership of the cargoes.
Chinese customs data shows that this year, it has not directly purchased any oil from Iran.
The trade intelligence Kpler’s tanker tracking data shows that the volume of Iran's oil transit to Chinese markets reached 1.6 mb/d in July.
In the first seven months of this year, Iran exported 1.56 mb/d of oil, of which 1.49 mb/d has transited to China and the rest to Syria, Brunei, and unknown destinations.
Data from the energy consulting firm Vortexa also shows that the volume of Iranian oil actually received by China has significantly increased this year.
Iran's customs data shows that in the first four months of the current fiscal year (from March 20 to July 21), Iran's revenue from oil and fuel oil exports (whether in cash, through bartering oil for goods, or other means) was $15.7 billion. However, based on the volume of oil exported during this period and the oil prices, the revenue should have been at least $17.5 billion.
It also remains unclear if Iran receives payments in hard currency from China or as barter deals. The shaky status of Iran’s battered currency, rial, could be an indication that Tehran does not recover its oil revenues all in cash. The rial is hovering near all time lows of 600,000 to the US dollar.
Zarif, now back as Deputy for Strategic Affairs under President Masoud Pezeshkian, is no stranger to resignations, treating them almost like brief intermissions—having tendered five during his tenure under former President Hassan Rouhani.
After being seen in the coverage of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s meeting with Pezeshkian’s cabinet on Tuesday, Zarif confirmed his return with a tweet.
“Following the prudent negotiations and thoughtful guidance of the esteemed President, and under his formal directive, I shall, with faith in divine providence and in the hope of continued support and counsel from the noble people, continue my responsibilities as the Deputy for Strategic Affairs to the President,” he wrote.
The former diplomat also commended his team's efforts, which he led as head of a steering committee responsible for evaluating the qualifications of candidates for ministerial positions in the cabinet.
Reflecting on the committee’s work, Zarif tweeted that he takes pride in the fact that "the appointments of nearly 70% of ministers and vice-presidents, as well as a significant number of deputy ministers and organizational leaders, were the result of expert recommendations stemming from this transparent and highly participatory process".
However, here also Zarif did an obvious turnabout. He had voiced his dissatisfaction with the steering committee’s outcomes when he announced his resignation from the cabinet in mid-August. He revealed that of the 19 ministers proposed, only three were top choices recommended by the committee he chaired, while ten were not on the council's list at all, raising serious concerns about the transparency and integrity of the selection process.
The cabinet, which promised to include young leaders and embrace diversity and inclusion, was later criticized for excluding young and female Iranians, resulting in a male-dominated, aging government.
Even more troubling was the revelation that many of the ministers are familiar faces, some with ties to the IRGC and others with questionable records from their previous government roles. This has sparked significant criticism, with nearly half of the cabinet drawing disapproval from regime insiders and the local media.
As reported by Tehran's media, the primary reason for Zarif's resignation was his alleged "disqualification" from serving as the deputy due to a failure to obtain the required security clearances. This disqualification was linked to the Law on the Appointment of Individuals to Sensitive Positions, enacted on October 2, 2022, which bars those with dual citizenship or close family members holding such status from sensitive roles. Zarif's children, born in the US during his tenure at the UN in New York, automatically acquired US citizenship, which legally disqualified him from the position.
This law was not in effect during his tenure as Foreign Minister under President Hassan Rouhani from 2013-2021.
In his public resignation announcement, Zarif made it clear that his departure was not due to disillusionment with Masoud Pezeshkian’s proposed administration. Instead, he cited concerns about his effectiveness in the strategic deputy role, emphasizing that his decision was not a reflection of disappointment with Pezeshkian's leadership.
Despite his own admission that his eight years as foreign minister amounted to "zero" influence—largely due to being outmaneuvered by the IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani—Zarif’s decision to join Pezeshkian's campaign from the early days raised eyebrows.
His return to the political arena, where he previously felt powerless, has led many to question his motives.
In his new role as Pezeshkian's deputy, Zarif won’t be building new empires but will instead operate from within the presidential office, continuing the same maneuvers he perfected during Pezeshkian’s campaign—rallying support and advancing the president’s agenda. His task is to help Pezeshkian navigate the complex web of power structures, much like he did as foreign minister. This time, Zarif may believe he can wield greater influence from within the intricate corridors of power, even if it means working within the very system that once sidelined him.
The foundation, in a statement on its website, highlighted that both the Queen, who has been in exile since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the Crown Prince, stand as "powerful symbols of opposition to the terrorist theocratic regime now ruling Iran."
It further underscored their relentless dedication over the past four decades, noting that "they have each devoted more than 40 years to championing religious freedom in Iran, advocating for a democratic form of government backed by popular vote, and bringing attention to myriad ongoing human rights abuses in Iran."
The statement also recognized the long-standing relationship between Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and President Richard Nixon, a bond that began in 1953.
The foundation's website elaborated that "the late Shah, who ruled Iran from 1953 to 1979, was a strong ally of the United States and a bulwark in the Cold War with the Soviet Union." It further detailed how the young Vice President Nixon and the young Shah first met in 1953, forming a close personal relationship that spanned nearly three decades.
Recalling Nixon's reflections in a 1983 interview, the statement quoted him as saying, "I knew the Shah better than any world leader I had met over the past 37 years of public life," and added that Nixon found the Shah to be "a very sensitive man, a very intelligent man, one who understood the world as well as any leader that I had met."
The Shah always faced both domestic and international opposition by left-leaning individuals and groups, who accused him of being too close to the United States at a time when there was a global ideological and military confrontation with the Soviet Union.
Established in 1995, shortly after the passing of President Nixon, the Architect of Peace Award was created to honor those who exemplify his enduring vision of fostering a more peaceful world.
Over the years, this distinguished award has been bestowed upon a notable array of individuals, including former Presidents Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush; former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Mike Pompeo; Senators Elizabeth Dole, Joe Lieberman, and John McCain; and Ambassadors Walter and Leonore Annenberg, as well as Robert C. O’Brien.
