Page 58 - IRANRptAug22

9.1.6 TMT sector news
Iran’s broadband subscription population coverage at 128% says regulator
Hackers reportedly take over Tehran CCTV infrastructure, call for overthrow of government
Iran may be heartbeat away from first unicorn
Broadband subscriptions in Iran, a country of 85mn, numbered 108.87mn in the three months to late June, according to figures from Iran’s telecoms regulator CRA. The population coverage of 128% was up by one percentage point since the previous quarter.
The subscriptions included nearly 97.84mn mobile broadband subscriptions and more than 11mn fixed lines.
The figures also showed that the number of registered SIM cards in Iran stood at 208mn. Biggest mobile operator MCI had 75.5mn active SIM cards. Second largest MTN Irancell had more than 60.7mn active SIM cards and third largest Rightel nearly 5.3mn.
CRA’s information also showed that fourth generation (4G) internet coverage had expanded to nearly 36,000 base transceiver stations (BTSs) sites in Iran, while 3G internet was available via 40,000 BTS sites and 2G via around 45,000 BTS sites.
A hacker group on June 2 claimed to have temporarily taken over the Tehran CCTV infrastructure run by the Iranian capital’s municipality.
The Albania-based Mujahedeen-e-Khalk (MEK), a Marxist-Islamist group that has worked to oppose the Iranian regime since the Islamic Revolution of more than four decades ago, claimed responsibility for the unprecedented cyberattack.
The hackers, according to ISNA, "infiltrated" surveillance cameras, including around the Tehran mausoleum of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The attack came on the eve of the June 3 anniversary of the 1989 death of the first supreme leader of Iran.
The MEK also reportedly released a video that showed the municipality's website and other sites hit by broken graphics and a picture of Khomeini and called for "rebellion until the government is overthrown."
Offering further details of the disruption caused to the Tehran municipality by the hackers, Iran's Young Journalists Club (YJC) news agency said the city authority’s websites and intranet system became temporarily unavailable. "Deliberate disruption in the internal systems of Tehran's municipality, including the publishing of an insulting image, put this system out of reach for colleagues for a few minutes," the municipality was quoted as saying by YJC.
YJC added that the hacker group published videos from the municipality's data centre to demonstrate that it had taken over the CCTV infrastructure of the city. Tehran's municipality acknowledged the hack in response to media inquiries and said it had plugged the hole in its system.
In October last year, a cyberattack on a nationwide fuel card payment system for subsidised gasoline paralysed petrol stations, causing chaos and traffic jams across the country. Earlier last year, hackers infiltrated the passenger information system serving passengers at train stations across Iran.
Iran’s Information and Communications Technology News Agency (ICTNA) lately caused a stir by reporting on claims that the country would soon get its first unicorn startup.
Shahram Shahkar, administrative manager at ride-hailing app business Snapp!, was said to have claimed at the Silk Road Startup Conference on the Persian Gulf island of Kish that the company would soon hit the $1bn valuation that grants unicorn status. Snapp!, following in Uber’s footsteps, by branching beyond simply ride-hailing, was moving into hotel reservation apps and, in collaboration with Irancell, also SnappPay software. Snapp! already offers food
58 IRAN Country Report August 2022 www.intellinews.com