COUNCIL:
The highest government body that deals
with the cyberspace is a newly-established
organization named the High Council of
Cyberspace (shoray-e aali-e fazaye majazi).
In March of 2012 this new structure was
set up on the orders of Ayatollah Khamenei
with the mission of instituting high-level
policies on cyberspace.
After the foundation of the high council of
cyberspace, all other Iranian organizations
in charge of cyber operations are
committed to implement the policies
instituted by this new government body.
BASIJ CYBER PARAMILITARY FORCE
Basij members on the cyber front are non-expert
individuals, less professional involved in activities
to provide computer, internet and blog writing
skills among the members.
As part of this project, tens of thousands of
Basijis have been provided free classes and
thousands of web blogs have been created for
them to work at. the key expectation that Basij
officials have from these trained Basijis is to
write material in support of the regime and the
leader of the Islamic Republic on their own blogs
and other write up comments on social media and other
sites.
In this light, Basijis post countless comments on
numerous sites – including sites that are critical
of the regime – and social networks whose
content is the same : defending the regime and
attacking the regime critics.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM
A good example to look at related to current
events is Team Melli.
They were recently knocked out of the World
Cup after they lost to the US. Prior to this many
Iranian’s have stopped supporting Team Melli
as they met with President Raisi and didn’t show
adequate support in solidarity of the Iranian
people. in fact, Iranians celebrated when they
lost.
When you visited the social media pages of many
Team Melli players you would see thousands of
messages from Iranians stating their grievances,
but at the same time, you would also see many
messages of support. If you looked deeper at
these accounts you would notice that they are
mostly fake accounts likely managed by the
Basij.
WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT DO
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
You may notice critical messages on some
social media posts that might anger you. It’s
likely the Basij force using bots or fake
accounts.
It’s important that you not engage and put a
spotlight on the content. Their main aim is to
change the narrative and change public
sentiment. If you manage the page its best that
you just delete it. Normally an account that’s
new, has no profile picture, has few posts or
followers is likely a fake or secondary
account.
Additionally be careful before sharing
content or a trending topic. it maybe fake
news and part of the Islamic Republics
agenda.
CYBER ARMY
Islamic Republics cyber army is a group
comprising highly skilled specialists in
information technology and professional
hackers who avoid revealing their
identity.
This group is not officially registered and
till today no agency or government
organization has assumed responsibility
for it. Still, incontestable evidence
suggests that the group is affiliated with
the IRGC.
The technical capabilities of Iran’s cyber
army are such that it has till now
managed to hack a lot of foreign-based
media outlets as well as Twitter and some
government sites in the west.
BRIEF HISTORY
In 2011 the Islamic Republic had succeeded in taking over the
information traffic on the internet through intelligent hacking.
Islamic Republic hackers had succeeded in diverting the flow of
information in Denmark towards Iran and then return it back to
Denmark.
In 2020, Reuters reported, quoting a monthly Facebook report,
that Iranian state-run media had targeted hundreds of fake
social media accounts to covertly spread pro-islamic republic
messaging, online since at least 2011, for secretly broadcasting
online promotional messages in favor of Islamic Republic in order
to target voters in countries including Britain and the United
States.
According to a 2021 report by a cyber-security company, “Islamic
Republic is running two surveillance operations in cyber-space,
targeting more than 1,000 dissidents”.
In 2021, a group called Sayyad Project had targeted the airport
of Albania’s capital Tirana. an anti-islamic republic cyber group
called Lab Dookhtegan [read my lips) revealed the identity of the
person directing the cyberattack as Mohammad-Bagher
Shirinkar.