Thousands of Tehran Municipality Surveillance Cameras Hacked

The “My Tehran” system stores information about cars, license plates, cards, green cards, property information, and the owners’ addresses. Many networks have asked why the municipality has been silent on this matter and if the system has been hacked, what are the citizens’ responsibilities?

Azadeh Mokhtari, the social secretary of the Rokna website, wrote in a tweet: "Now, the information of all the people of Tehran is in the hands of hackers. No one in the public relations and municipality of Tehran should be held accountable for whether there was a cyber attack and, if so, what were its dimensions..."

The Hamshahri newspaper, which is run under the supervision of the Tehran Municipality, has remained silent on this issue, but the municipality's public relations department confirmed the matter two hours after the incident and wrote in a statement: "We would like to inform the respected citizens of Tehran that at noon today, June 12, an intentional disruption to the internal page of the Tehran Municipality's intranet system made the system inaccessible to colleagues for a few minutes by publishing an offensive image. The process of resolving this limited disruption was carried out quickly, and currently, the Tehran Municipality's service delivery systems are temporarily unavailable for further technical checks by the Information and Communications Technology Organization."

The announcement did not name the hackers or their motives, and only stated that "the nature of the hackers and their method of operation will be disclosed after a final review by the responsible institutions."

Last summer, the cyber group "Adalat Ali" managed to hack the security cameras of Evin Prison. The leak of images showing the mistreatment and oppressive approaches of officers towards prisoners made public opinion more familiar with the current realities in the detention centers and led to the resignation of the head of the Prisons Organization.

Source: DW