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Hackers stole about $90 million from Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Wednesday, according to multiple independent crypto-tracking firms.
A skilled pro-Israel hacking group known as ‘Predatory Sparrow’ took credit for the cyberattack, which appeared to be aimed at further weakening Iran amid Israeli’s military strikes on Tehran.
In a post in Farsi on X, the hackers said that they had hit Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex, claiming that Iran used the exchange to skirt international sanctions.
Predatory Sparrow has emerged in the last five years to claim spectacular cyberattacks that have previously disrupted an Iranian steel mill and payments at Iranian gas stations.
The hackers cast themselves as anti-government Iranian hacktivists but are widely suspected among cybersecurity experts of having ties to Israel.
Much of the cyber activity in recent days, as Israel and Iran trade missile strikes, appears aimed at sowing panic in the two countries.
Reports say Israelis have received mass text messages impersonating authorities that claim that bomb shelters aren’t safe.
The Iranian government has warned citizens not to use the WhatsApp messaging service out of fear that Israel was collecting information from those chats.
A spokesperson for Meta — owners of WhatsApp — has called those claims false and underscored that WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted.
In a separate hack on Tuesday, Predatory Sparrow said it had destroyed data at Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah, claiming IRGC members used the bank’s services as a justification for the action.
Iran’s state-affiliated Fars news agency warned of potential disruptions to bank services at gas stations.
Nobitex said in a statement on its website on Wednesday that access to the crypto exchange had been ‘suspended,’ as a precaution, until further notice.
Elliptic and TRM Labs, which are Crypto-tracking firms, have confirmed the crypto was stolen and sent to ‘wallets’ or crypto accounts, with an expletive that referenced Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
CNN reported that a source in Tehran said they have gone to about 10 ATM machines over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday and found all of them either non-functional or out of cash.
The pair of cyber attacks marks an escalation in Israel and Iran’s years-long shadow war in cyberspace.
