{"id":204738,"date":"2026-04-22T06:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T10:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/iran-claims-us-exploited-networking-equipment-backdoors-during-strikes-says-devices-from-cisco-and-others-failed-despite-blackout-in-attack-that-indicates-deep-sabotage\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T06:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T10:50:10","slug":"iran-claims-us-exploited-networking-equipment-backdoors-during-strikes-says-devices-from-cisco-and-others-failed-despite-blackout-in-attack-that-indicates-deep-sabotage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/iran-claims-us-exploited-networking-equipment-backdoors-during-strikes-says-devices-from-cisco-and-others-failed-despite-blackout-in-attack-that-indicates-deep-sabotage\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes \u2014 says devices from Cisco and others failed despite blackout in attack that ‘indicates deep sabotage’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes \u2014 says devices from Cisco and others failed despite blackout in attack that ‘indicates deep sabotage’<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/cyber-security\/iran-claims-us-exploited-networking-equipment-backdoors-during-strikes<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-22 06:20:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.tomshardware.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

Iranian state media has alleged that equipment from Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, and MikroTik failed during U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran. The report, which claims that \u201cAmerican \u2018black boxes\u2019 failed at zero hour of the attack on Isfahan,\u201d concerns devices that Iran claims either rebooted or dropped offline despite the country having already been disconnected from the global Internet, a fact it says “indicates deep sabotage.”Iranian media speculates that hidden firmware or backdoors allowed remote sabotage, possibly triggered by satellite or at a pre-set time. None of the claims has been independently verified, and given that the claims originate from state media, some skepticism is merited.Meanwhile, the U.S. hasn\u2019t addressed Iran’s specific allegations, but has publicly confirmed that it conducted cyber operations against Iran’s communications infrastructure. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said during a March 2nd Pentagon briefing that U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Space Command were the \u201cfirst movers\u201d in so-called Operation Epic Fury, the military campaign launched against Iran at the end of February. Caine said coordinated space and cyber operations disrupted Iranian communications and sensor networks before strikes began.Article continues below <\/p>\n

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Iran\u2019s claims are unverified, but each of the four vendors it named \u2014 Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, and MikroTik \u2014 has a documented record of security issues. NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2014, for example, demonstrated the agency\u2019s Tailored Access Operations unit intercepting Cisco routers during shipping and installing surveillance implants before repackaging them. Cisco never cooperated with the program and later began shipping equipment to decoy addresses to disrupt interception.Juniper Networks, in 2015, meanwhile, disclosed that it had found unauthorized code in the ScreenOS firmware running on its NetScreen firewalls, which could allow attackers to bypass authentication and decrypt VPN traffic. Fortinet acknowledged in 2016 that older versions of FortiOS contained hardcoded SSH passwords granting remote access, though it characterized the problem as a management authentication issue. As for MikroTik, its routers have been a persistent target for botnet operators, with Tenable documenting a vulnerability chain in 2019 that could enable an attacker to downgrade firmware and create a persistent backdoor.Chinese state media seized the opportunity to pile on Iran\u2019s claims, with the country\u2019s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, which has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. fabricated the Volt Typhoon hacking campaign to deflect from its own cyber operations, promoted the allegations as further evidence of American backdoors in networking hardware. Five Eyes intelligence agencies have attributed Volt Typhoon to Chinese state-sponsored actors targeting Western critical infrastructure.Iran’s Internet, meanwhile, has been largely offline for 52 consecutive days, with connectivity having sat at roughly 1% of pre-war levels since strikes began on February 28, making it the longest nationwide internet shutdown on record.Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. <\/p>\n

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