Schneier - Hacked App Part of US/Israeli Propaganda Campaign Against Iran

Wired has the story:

Shortly after the first set of explosions, Iranians received bursts of notifications on their phones. They came not from the government advising caution, but from an apparently hacked prayer-timing app called BadeSaba Calendar that has been downloaded more than 5 million times from the Google Play Store.

The messages arrived in quick succession over a period of 30 minutes, starting with the phrase ‘Help has arrived’ at 9:52 am Tehran time, shortly after the first set of explosions. No party has claimed responsibility for the hacks.

It happened so fast that this is most likely a government operation. I can easily envision both the US and Israel having hacked the app previously, and then deciding that this is a good use of that access.



from Schneier on Security https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/03/hacked-app-part-of-us-israeli-propaganda-campaign-against-iran.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

KnowBe4 - Scam Of The Week: "When Users Add Their Names to a Wall of Shame"

Image
Eric Howes , KnowBe4 Principal Lab Researcher, found out about another insidious bad guy trick: " If you work in IT there has undoubtedly come a dark moment when you wondered to yourself just who among your employee users would be gullible enough to click through a phishing email and potentially bring down your organization. from KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training Blog https://blog.knowbe4.com/when-users-add-their-names-to-a-wall-of-shame
Read more

KnowBe4 - Uncovering the Sophisticated Phishing Campaign Bypassing M365 MFA

Image
Lead Analysts: Jeewan Singh Jalal, Prabhakaran Ravichandhiran and Anand Bodke KnowBe4 Threat Labs has detected a sophisticated phishing campaign targeting North American businesses and professionals. This attack compromises Microsoft 365 accounts (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive) by abusing the OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization Grant flow, bypassing strong passwords and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). The victim is directed to the legitimate Microsoft domain ( microsoft.com/devicelogin ) portal to enter an attack-supplied device code. This action authenticates the victim and issues a valid OAuth access token to the attacker’s application. The real-time theft of these tokens grants the attacker persistent access to the victim’s Microsoft 365 accounts and corporate data. from Human Risk Management Blog https://blog.knowbe4.com/uncovering-the-sophisticated-phishing-campaign-bypassing-m365-mfa
Read more

The Hacker News - ⚡ Weekly Recap: WhatsApp 0-Day, Docker Bug, Salesforce Breach, Fake CAPTCHAs, Spyware App & More

Cybersecurity today is less about single attacks and more about chains of small weaknesses that connect into big risks. One overlooked update, one misused account, or one hidden tool in the wrong hands can be enough to open the door. The news this week shows how attackers are mixing methods—combining stolen access, unpatched software, and clever tricks to move from small entry points to large from The Hacker News https://thehackernews.com/2025/09/weekly-recap-whatsapp-0-day-docker-bug.html
Read more