Internet Outages Detected Across Iran, Report Web Monitoring Firms

On Wednesday, internet access in Iran experienced a drastic decrease as the ongoing conflict with Israel entered its sixth day, according to web-monitoring organizations.

NetBlocks, a group focused on monitoring global internet accessibility, reported via X that Iran is undergoing a “near-total national internet blackout.”

This assessment was confirmed by other internet-monitoring agencies.

Data from IODA, which aims to detect large-scale outages by monitoring internet infrastructure connectivity in near-real time, revealed a sharp decline in internet access in Iran on Wednesday.

David Belson, Cloudflare’s head of data insight, told TechCrunch that internet traffic in Iran “is currently about 97% lower than it was at the same time last week,” based on the company’s network data.

These reports of internet outages come in the context of the military conflict between Iran and Israel. Additionally, Iran has been subjected to various cyberattacks since the conflict began, including breaches affecting a major Iranian bank and a cryptocurrency exchange. After these incidents, the Iranian news outlet IRIB stated that Israel had initiated a “massive cyber war” against Iran, prompting Iranian officials to impose restrictions on internet access.

Nevertheless, Belson remarked that the exact cause of the decline in Iran’s internet accessibility is still uncertain.

“In previous cases of extensive internet outages, we typically witness a simultaneous reduction in announced IP address ranges, rendering the country’s networks invisible on the internet. However, we haven’t observed such trends in this instance,” Belson explained to TechCrunch.

“We can only note that traffic has diminished — the data does not clarify the reason for this decrease,” he added.

Other internet monitoring experts, like Doug Madory from Kentik, have also highlighted the notable decline.

“Several Iranian service providers are currently offline during the second nationwide internet blackout in just a few days,” Madory noted on X. “This disruption is worse than yesterday’s.”