The internet is often seen as the domain of dissidents and free spirits. But the Iranian regime like many others has long recognised the importance of winning the virtual propaganda war, and the talk for the last couple of years has been of an “Iranian Cyber Army”, a band of dedicated regime loyalists who attack opposition websites and other virtual targets.
But untangling myth from reality in this murky world is difficult. Has the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC, really deployed one of the largest forces of hackers on the planet, or is it smoke and mirrors, designed to intimidate dissident web users?
The years 1999 to 2009 were a golden decade for freelance hackers in Iran, “an era of chaos”, as a network security expert in the country describes it. With no comprehensive internet legislation or other barriers, groups of young hackers operated at will, even attacking sensitive government websites belonging to the army, the prosecutor general and even the space agency.
A member of “Emperor”, one of these groups, says it was once commissioned by a local firm to destroy a government database, while in the 2005 presidential election, it was asked to hack into two candidates’ websites.
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