Internet collapses across Iran, say web-monitoring firms

On Wednesday, Iran experienced a significant disruption in internet connectivity, as reported by various web-monitoring agencies. NetBlocks, an organization specializing in tracking global internet access, stated on social media platform X that the nation is currently enduring a near-total blackout of its internet services. This alarming assessment was corroborated by additional monitoring organizations. Data from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) system highlighted a dramatic drop in connectivity, marking a sharp decline in internet access across Iran. According to David Belson, the director of data insights at Cloudflare, internet traffic levels in the country have plummeted to approximately 97% lower than figures recorded just a week earlier. This stark reduction underscores the severity of the situation as Iran engages in military conflict with Israel. The internet outages coincide with a series of cyberattacks targeting Iranian infrastructure, including breaches affecting a prominent Iranian bank and a cryptocurrency exchange. Following these incidents, Iranian state media reported that Israel had initiated a "massive cyber war" against Iran. In response, Iranian authorities are believed to have imposed restrictions on internet access throughout the country. Despite the widespread disruptions, the exact cause of the internet collapse remains ambiguous. Belson noted that in previous instances of substantial outages, a corresponding decline in the number of active IP addresses was typically observed, suggesting that networks had become invisible online. However, this time, such activity has not been detected. "We can only observe the drastic drop in traffic, but the reasons behind it are unclear," he elaborated. Other experts in internet monitoring, including Doug Madory from Kentik, have confirmed similar findings. He remarked on X that numerous Iranian service providers have gone offline, marking a second significant internet blackout within just two days, with this recent outage proving to be more severe than the previous one.