politico.com
By Maggie Miller
03/04/2026 07:00 PM EST

But it’s unclear if the strike has fully taken out Iran’s ability to launch cyberattacks as the Middle East war expands.
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday said it bombed a compound in Tehran housing Iran’s cyber warfare headquarters — but it’s unclear whether the strike will significantly kneecap Iran’s cyberattack capabilities.

According to a statement from the IDF, its forces on Wednesday carried out a “wide-scale strike” targeting a collection of military sites on the Eastern edge of Tehran that allegedly housed the headquarters of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The IDF claims that the headquarters of the IRGC’s “cyber and electronic headquarters” and its “Intelligence Directorate” were among the military outposts hit in the strike.

It’s unclear to what extent these military sites were damaged or whether there were any casualties. Iran remains under an almost total internet blackout, which began on Feb. 28 when the first U.S. and Israeli strikes began, limiting the flow of information coming out of Iran.

Spokespeople for the IDF and for the Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the White House declined to comment on whether the U.S. was involved in the strikes and instead deferred to U.S. Central Command, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The IRGC has been linked to major cyber operations against the U.S. in recent years, including a hack and leak attack against the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in 2024.

Iran-linked hackers have been hitting back against the U.S., Israel and surrounding Gulf nations since the U.S.-led military operation on Saturday, which resulted in the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to findings from Israeli cyber firm Check Point Software, two types of surveillance cameras popular across Israel, Qatar, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern nations were compromised by Iranian-linked hackers, likely to monitor missile-related damage to those nations.

Researchers from cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks’ Unit42 have also tracked dozens of pro-Iran hacktivist groups launching cyberattacks since Feb. 28, largely targeting critical infrastructure. These groups have claimed responsibility for compromises to Israeli payment systems and the temporary shutdown of Kuwaiti government websites.

One of these groups, Handala, has ties to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and claimed responsibility this week for attacks on an Israeli oil and gas energy company and the shutdown of some Jordanian gas stations.

It’s difficult to verify whether this group actually carried out these attacks. Jordan’s cybersecurity agency confirmed earlier this week that it had thwarted an Iranian cyberattack on wheat silo management systems in the country.

Despite the IDF’s strikes against the IRGC’s cyber command centers, cyberattacks linked to outside actors sympathetic to Iran may continue relatively unscathed.

Lt. Gen. Charles Moore, former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, which handles offensive U.S. cyber operations against adversaries, said Wednesday that the IDF strikes will likely have “a significant impact on the regime’s ability to continue to execute these types of operations.” Still, Moore said, “that doesn’t mean proxy forces or others that are ideologically aligned with the regime can’t still attempt to conduct operations against us or Israel.”

The Iranian government has often relied on proxy groups outside the country, including those based in Russia, to carry out cyberattacks or disinformation campaigns on its behalf. This makes it harder to trace efforts back to the Iranian regime and more difficult for impacted countries to respond to these types of decentralized attacks.

“Cyber is now embedded in modern conflict, and operational impact does not require all operators to be physically located in Tehran,” said Alexander Leslie, senior advisor on government affairs at cybersecurity company Recorded Future.