Israel accuses Iran of hacking surveillance cameras for the purpose of espionage

The Israeli Cyber ​​Security Directorate announced that it had monitored “dozens of Iranian hacking operations into surveillance cameras for espionage purposes” since the beginning of the war with Tehran, calling on the public to be cautious.

The Israel Cyber ​​Authority said on the X platform, “The Directorate is working to alert hundreds of camera owners, and calls on the public to change passwords and update software to prevent any security risks, whether at the state level or personal.”

Mutual cyber attacks between Iran and Israel have witnessed an increase in recent years, as part of a hidden war between the two parties that culminated in an open confrontation last June, and then again on February 28.
In December 2025, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is preparing to face current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this year’s general elections, said that he was subjected to a cyber attack targeting his account on the Telegram application, after hackers claimed that they had hacked his phone.

Private messages, videos, and photos said to have been taken from Bennett’s phone were posted on a hacker website called “Handala,” which is the name of a cartoon character created by Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, in addition to an account linked to him on the X platform.

A cybersecurity expert told AFP that hackers linked to Iran have intensified their operations in the region since the start of the strikes on Iran.

The Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point said in a report that since the start of the US-Israeli attack eleven days ago, hackers have been monitoring access to surveillance cameras, which are widely used but are often poorly protected.

The company’s head of cybersecurity intelligence, Gil Messing, said that these images may have been used to assess the damage caused by the attacks or to “gather the necessary information” about “the habits of the targeted people or the sites that could be attacked.”

He added that the hackers are “part of the Iranian army” and are “largely supported by the state,” particularly the Revolutionary Guards and the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

The Financial Times reported last week that Israel had hacked most of the traffic cameras in Tehran for years, in preparation for the attack that resulted in the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on its first day.