Intel Corporation (INTC) www.intc.com Aug 22, 2025 • 4:53 PM EDT
U.S. Government to make $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock as company builds upon its more than $100 billion expansion of resilient semiconductor supply chain
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Intel Corporation today announced an agreement with the Trump Administration to support the continued expansion of American technology and manufacturing leadership. Under terms of the agreement, the United States government will make an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, reflecting the confidence the Administration has in Intel to advance key national priorities and the critically important role the company plays in expanding the domestic semiconductor industry.
The government’s equity stake will be funded by the remaining $5.7 billion in grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act and $3.2 billion awarded to the company as part of the Secure Enclave program. Intel will continue to deliver on its Secure Enclave obligations and reaffirmed its commitment to delivering trusted and secure semiconductors to the U.S. Department of Defense. The $8.9 billion investment is in addition to the $2.2 billion in CHIPS grants Intel has received to date, making for a total investment of $11.1 billion.
“As the only semiconductor company that does leading-edge logic R&D and manufacturing in the U.S., Intel is deeply committed to ensuring the world’s most advanced technologies are American made,” said Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel. “President Trump’s focus on U.S. chip manufacturing is driving historic investments in a vital industry that is integral to the country’s economic and national security. We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership.”
“Intel is excited to welcome the United States of America as a shareholder, helping to create the most advanced chips in the world,” said Howard Lutnick, United States Secretary of Commerce. “As more companies look to invest in America, this administration remains committed to reinforcing our country’s dominance in artificial intelligence while strengthening our national security.”
Under the terms of today’s announcement, the government agrees to purchase 433.3 million primary shares of Intel common stock at a price of $20.47 per share, equivalent to a 9.9 percent stake in the company. This investment provides American taxpayers with a discount to the current market price while enabling the U.S. and existing shareholders to benefit from Intel’s long-term business success.
The government’s investment in Intel will be a passive ownership, with no Board representation or other governance or information rights. The government also agrees to vote with the Company’s Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions.
The government will receive a five-year warrant, at $20 per share for an additional five percent of Intel common shares, exercisable only if Intel ceases to own at least 51% of the foundry business.
The existing claw-back and profit-sharing provisions associated with the government’s previously dispersed $2.2 billion grant to Intel under the CHIPS Act will be eliminated to create permanency of capital as the company advances its U.S. investment plans.
Investing in America’s Future
Intel has continued to strategically invest in research, development and manufacturing in the United States since the company’s founding in 1968. Over the last five years, Intel has invested $108 billion in capital and $79 billion in R&D, the majority of which were dedicated to expanding U.S.-based manufacturing capacity and process technology.
Intel is currently undertaking a significant expansion of its domestic chipmaking capacity, investing more than $100 billion to expand its U.S. sites. The company’s newest chip fabrication site in Arizona is expected to begin high-volume production later this year, featuring the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process technology on U.S. soil.
Since joining the company as CEO in March, Tan has taken swift actions to strengthen Intel’s financial position, drive disciplined execution and revitalize an engineering-first culture. Today’s agreement supports the company’s broader strategy to position Intel for the future.
Strengthening the U.S. Technology Ecosystem
Intel’s U.S. investments come as many leading technology companies support President Trump’s agenda to achieve U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership.
Intel is deeply engaged with current and potential customers and partners who share its commitment to building a strong and resilient U.S. semiconductor supply chain.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft: “The decades-long partnership between Microsoft and Intel has pioneered new frontiers of technology and showcased the very best of American ingenuity and innovation. Intel’s continued investment in strengthening the U.S. semiconductor supply chain, supported by President Trump’s bold strategy to rebuild this critical industry on American soil, will benefit the country and broader technology ecosystem for years to come.”
Michael Dell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dell Technologies: “The industry needs a strong and resilient U.S. semiconductor industry, and no company is more important to this mission than Intel. It’s great to see Intel and the Trump Administration working together to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership. Dell fully supports these shared priorities, and we look forward to bringing a new generation of products to market powered by American-designed and manufactured Intel chips.”
Enrique Lores, President and CEO, HP: “We share Intel’s and the Trump Administration’s deep commitment to building a strong, resilient and secure U.S. semiconductor industry. Intel’s continued investment in domestic R&D and manufacturing is integral to future innovation and will strengthen the partnership between HP and Intel for years come. This is a defining moment for great American companies to lead the world in cutting-edge technologies that will shape the future.”
Matt Garman, AWS CEO: “Leading-edge semiconductors are the bedrock of every AI technology and cloud platform, making U.S. investment in this critical industry one of the most important technological, economic and national security imperatives of our time. Intel plays a vital role as one of the country’s leading chip manufacturers, and we applaud the Trump administration’s efforts to usher in a new era of American innovation in partnership with American companies.”
PJT Partners acted as Intel’s exclusive financial advisor in connection with this investment agreement.
About Intel
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash the potential of data to transform business and society for the better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements, including with respect to: the agreement with the U.S. government and its expected benefits, including the anticipated timing of closing and impacts to Intel’s existing agreements with the U.S. government under the CHIPS Act; Intel’s investment plans, including in manufacturing expansion projects and R&D; and the anticipated production using Intel’s latest semiconductor process technology in Arizona later this year. Such statements involve many risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied, including those associated with: uncertainties as to the timing of the consummation of the transaction and the receipt of funding; Intel’s ability to effectively use the proceeds and realize and utilize the other anticipated benefits of the transaction as contemplated thereby; the availability of appropriations from the legislative branch of the U.S. government and the ability of the executive branch of the U.S. government to obtain funding and support contemplated by the transaction; the determination by the legislative, judicial or executive branches of the U.S. government that any aspect of the transaction was unauthorized, void or voidable; Intel’s ability to obtain additional or replacement financing, as needed; Intel’s ability to effectively assess, determine and monitor the financial, tax and accounting treatment of the transaction, together with Intel’s and the U.S. government’s obligations thereunder; litigation related to the transaction or otherwise; potential adverse reactions or changes to business relationships resulting from the announcement or completion of the transaction; the timing and achievement of expected business milestones; Intel’s ability to effectively comply with the broader legal and regulatory requirements and heightened scrutiny associated with government partnerships and contracts; the high level of competition and rapid technological change in the semiconductor industry; the significant long-term and inherently risky investments Intel is making in R&D and manufacturing facilities that may not realize a favorable return; the complexities and uncertainties in developing and implementing new semiconductor products and manufacturing process technologies; Intel’s ability to time and scale its capital investments appropriately; changes in demand for Intel’s products; macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical tensions and conflicts, including geopolitical and trade tensions between the U.S. and China, the impacts of Russia's war on Ukraine, tensions and conflict affecting Israel and the Middle East, and rising tensions between mainland China and Taiwan; the evolving market for products with AI capabilities; Intel’s complex global supply chain supporting its manufacturing facilities and incorporating external foundries, including from disruptions, delays, trade tensions and conflicts, or shortages; recently elevated geopolitical tensions, volatility and uncertainty with respect to international trade policies, including tariffs and export controls, impacting Intel’s business, the markets in which it competes and the world economy; product defects, errata and other product issues, particularly as Intel develops next-generation products and implements next-generation manufacturing process technologies; potential security vulnerabilities in Intel’s products; increasing and evolving cybersecurity threats and privacy risks; IP risks including related litigation and regulatory proceedings; the need to attract, retain, and motivate key talent; Intel’s debt obligations and its ability to access sources of capital; complex and evolving laws and regulations across many jurisdictions; fluctuations in currency exchange rates; changes in Intel’s effective tax rate; catastrophic events; environmental, health, safety, and product regulations; and other risks and uncertainties described in this release and Intel’s 2024 Form 10-K, Q1 2025 Form 10-Q, Q2 2025 Form 10-Q, and other filings with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they were first made. Intel does not undertake, and expressly disclaims any duty, to update such statements, whether as a result of new information, new developments, or otherwise, except to the extent that disclosure may be required by law.
Microsoft Community Hub - techcommunity.microsoft.com - Aug 20, 2025
We are announcing that all Exchange Online customers who send external email should start switching to custom (aka vanity) domain names.
MOERA domains for email
When a organization creates a new tenant in Microsoft 365, an onmicrosoft.com domain (or similar default domain like onmicrosoft.de) is provided. These MOERA (Microsoft Online Email Routing Address) domains enable immediate connectivity and user creation. Having enabled a quick start and testing of a new tenant, customers are expected to add their own custom domains for better brand representation and control moving forward. Customers who continue using MOERA domains as their “primary domain” may face significant challenges.
Limitations of free ‘onmicrosoft’ shared domains
These “default” domains are useful for testing mail flow but are not suitable for regular messaging. They do not reflect a customer’s brand identity and offer limited administrative control. Moreover, because these domains all share the ‘onmicrosoft’ domain (for example, ‘contoso.onmicrosoft.com’), their reputation is collectively impacted. Despite our efforts to minimize abuse, spammers often exploit newly created tenants to send bursts of spam from ‘.onmicrosoft.com’ addresses before we can intervene. This degrades this shared domain’s reputation, affecting all legitimate users. To ensure brand trust and email deliverability, organizations should establish and use their own custom domains for sending email. Until now, we did not have any limits on use of MOERA domains for email delivery.
Introducing new throttling enforcement
To prevent misuse and help improve deliverability of customer email by encouraging best practices, we are changing our policy. In the future, MOERA domains should only be used for testing purposes, not regular email sending. We will be introducing throttling to limit messages sent from onmicrosoft.com domains to 100 external recipients per organization per 24 hour rolling window. Inbound messages won't be affected. External recipients are counted after the expansion of any of the original recipients. When a sender hits the throttling limit, they will receive NDRs with the code 550 5.7.236 for any attempts to send to external recipients while the tenant is throttled.
Customer actions
Customers will need to take actions depending on their use of their MOERA domain.
Purchase and migrate to a custom domain if not already done.
Ensure only custom domains are used for sending non-test emails.
If your tenant's default domain is a MOERA domain, set the default domain to a custom domain. This can be done in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Mailboxes will need to have their primary SMTP addresses changed to the custom domain alias. Changing the primary SMTP address will have an impact on the username used to log into accounts so updates may need to be made to any credentials configured to authenticate devices or applications with users’ accounts.
Note: Customers with Federated Domains will have to add a non-Federated custom domain in Microsoft 365 to act as a default domain, as Federated domains cannot play that role. Learn more here: AD FS Overview.
Purchasing a domain
A domain registrar is a company authorized to sell and manage domain names. To purchase a domain, you typically visit a registrar’s website, search for an available domain name, and follow the checkout process to register it in your name. Once purchased, you can manage DNS settings through the registrar’s portal to validate your ownership when adding it to Exchange Online as an accepted domain. Once purchased, you can use the following instructions to add it to your tenant as an accepted domain – documentation.
Adding new aliases to existing mailboxes
To migrate users over to using a new custom domain, admins will need to add aliases to each user account for the new custom domain. These new aliases will need to be set as the Primary SMTP Address on the mailbox so that it is used for sending out emails. Users at organizations who make use of the Sending from Aliases feature will need to ensure that the correct alias is selected when they reply to emails addressed to their MOERA alias.
Known MOERA domain usage scenarios
Besides regular email client sending when a MOERA domain is a primary SMTP address, these are some of the known usage scenarios customers should be aware of:
Sender Rewriting Scheme may use MOERA domains as fallback if it is set as the default domain. Customers will need to change their default domains to avoid this. (Sender Rewriting Scheme (SRS) in Microsoft 365).
Bookings app invites may be configured to send from MOERA domains. Customers will need to ensure Bookings is configured to use their custom domain. (Custom domain support in Shared Bookings).
Notifications from Microsoft should be set up to use a custom domain. (Select the domain to use for email from Microsoft 365 products).
Journaling Reports use the Microsoft Exchange Recipient address set for tenants (MicrosoftExchangeRecipientPrimarySmtpAddress in Get-OrganizationConfig). This address cannot be modified by admins and therefore these messages will not count towards the throttling limit.
Hybrid configurations with complex routing make use of MOERA domains containing mail.onmicrosoft.com. It is possible that addresses using these domains could send emails to external recipients e.g. OOF messages when Sending from Aliases is enabled. These messages will not be throttling so long as these domains are not used for original traffic.
Analyzing your MOERA email traffic
You can use the Message Trace feature in Exchange Admin Center to retrieve the outbound traffic being sent from your tenant. By placing a wild card address in the Senders field, you can get a report with all traffic using your onmicrosoft.com domain to send. Note that this report would contain messages sent internally as well, but those can be filtered out of the resulting report by using the recipient domain.
Rollout timeline
The throttling rollout will be based on the number of Exchange seats in an organization:
MOERA outgoing email throttling starts
Exchange seats in the tenant
October 15, 2025
Trial
December 1, 2025
< 3
January 7, 2026
3 – 10
February 2, 2026
11 – 50
March 2, 2026
51 – 200
April 1, 2026
201 – 2,000
May 4, 2026
2,001 – 10,000
June 1, 2026
10,001 >
Announcements for each stage of the rollout will be made one month before via Message Center to all customers meeting the seat count criteria. All customers who are using their MOERA domains are encouraged to start planning and migrating today.
ZATAZ » zataz.com Posted On 21 Août 2025By : Damien Bancal
Bis repetita pour Auchan. Aprés la fuite de novembre de 2024, voici une nouvelle cyber attaques concernant les données des clients Auchan révélées. Les cartes waaoh sont bloquées pour ne pas perdre le cagnottage !
Auchan est à nouveau la cible d’un piratage : les données personnelles de clients liées à leur carte fidélité ont été exposées. Civilité, nom, prénom, adresses, téléphone, e‑mail et numéro de carte ont été consultés sans autorisation. Les données bancaires, mots de passe et codes PIN sont épargnés. Des cartes ont été désactivées, obligeant les clients à se rendre en magasin pour récupérer leur cagnotte via une nouvelle carte Waaoh.
Un nouveau choc discret mais massif
La scène se répète, et pourtant elle frappe toujours par son brutal réalisme. Des clients reçoivent un message laconique : « Nous vous écrivons afin de vous informer qu’Auchan a été victime d’une cyberattaque. » En quelques lignes, la mécanique est posée. La cyberattaque a entraîné un accès non autorisé à des données personnelles rattachées aux comptes de fidélité : civilité, statut client professionnel, nom, prénom, adresses email et postale, numéro de téléphone, numéro de carte fidélité.
La communication interne tente de rassurer : aucune donnée bancaire, mot de passe ou code PIN ne serait concerné. Mais derrière cette affirmation se cache une réalité plus complexe. Car le périmètre de l’intrusion touche à l’identité du client, son profil complet, ouvrant la voie à de multiples usages malveillants : usurpation, phishing, ciblage commercial illégal.
Le piratage, non encore médiatisé au moment de notre publication, s’est accompagné d’un geste concret : les cartes fidélité des clients concernés ont été désactivées. Pour récupérer l’accès à leur cagnotte waaoh, les clients doivent se déplacer en magasin afin de se voir attribuer une nouvelle carte. Cette mesure, discrète mais significative, confirme la gravité de l’incident.
A noter que le courrier d’alerte d’Auchan de ce 21 août, est mot pour mot l’alerte de novembre de 2024. A sa première lecture, j’ai même cru à une tentative de fraude !
Une riposte immédiate mais silencieuse
Auchan a rapidement notifié la Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), comme le prévoit la réglementation européenne sur la protection des données (RGPD). La communication évoque une réaction « avec la plus grande rigueur » et des mesures immédiates pour mettre fin à l’attaque. Aucune information n’a encore filtré sur la nature de l’intrusion : vecteur, auteur, durée, ou origine de l’attaque. S’agit-il d’un acte isolé, ou d’un épisode dans une série plus large de compromissions, comme celle révélée en novembre 2024, qui avait déjà affecté les données de plus de 500 000 clients ? Rien ne permet pour l’heure d’en juger. Il est cependant interessant de remarquer que cette alerte fait suite à plusieurs autres concernant Orange Belgique, Air France/KLM, Etc. La fuite provenant d’un partenaire.
La désactivation des cartes et la nécessité de se déplacer en magasin introduisent une friction inhabituelle dans le parcours client, révélant, comme ZATAZ a déjà pu vous le raconter, que le système de fidélité, souvent perçu comme périphérique, est une zone sensible.
La fidélité comme faille stratégique
Le programme de fidélité, pierre angulaire de la relation client dans la grande distribution, constitue un gisement de données hautement exploitables : habitudes d’achat, données personnelles, historique de consommation. En ciblant cette couche spécifique, les cybercriminels cherchent à déstabiliser l’image de la marque tout en récoltant des données facilement revendables sur les places de marché illégales.
san.com Aug 23, 2025 at 12:34 AM GMT+2
A hacker breached an airline and stole information on hundreds of thousands of people, including U.S. government employees.
Summary
Exposed IDs
Straight Arrow News examined 2,626 photos of identifying documents such as passports, IDs and birth certificates that were stolen by a hacker.
U.S. government data
The data includes the names, emails and phone numbers of employees from the State Deptartment, ICE, TSA, CBP and more.
Airline denial
Uzbekistan Airways denied that any intrusion took place and even suggested that leaked data may have been generated with artificial intelligence.
Full story
A hacker claims to have stolen information on hundreds of thousands of people — including U.S. government employees — after breaching an international airline. Straight Arrow News obtained a sample of the data, allegedly taken from Uzbekistan Airways, and confirmed the presence of sensitive documents such as scans of thousands of passports.
The data was advertised on Thursday by the hacker, who is known online as ByteToBreach and purports to be a native of the Swiss Alps, on a dark web forum known for hosting leaks, malware and hacking tools. The purportedly 300-gigabyte data cache contains, among other things, the email addresses of 500,000 passengers and 400 airline employees.
The post included a sample of the data, such as alleged credentials for multiple servers and software programs run by the airline. It also showed partial credit card data, as well as scans of 75 passports from the U.S., Russia, Israel, the U.K., South Korea and other nations. The hacker claims to have obtained identifying documents from more than 40 different countries.
The hacker provided Straight Arrow News with a larger data sample than the one posted online, containing 2,626 photos of identifying documents such as passports, IDs, marriage licenses and birth certificates. Numerous passports belonged to babies and young children.
Passports and other identifying data are valuable on underground markets given their potential use for a range of criminal activities, such as fraud and identity theft. Hackers could also leverage the prevalence of data on government employees for phishing attacks.
U.S. government employees’ data compromised
Another document from the sample the hacker provided to SAN contained 285 email addresses belonging to airline employees. A list of email addresses for passengers held 503,410 entries.
A spreadsheet with personal information of 379,603 members of Uzbekistan Airways’ loyalty program exposes names, genders, birthdates, nationalities, email addresses, phone numbers, member IDs and more.
The email addresses indicate that those members include employees of several U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Energy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration.
Employees of foreign government agencies from countries like Russia, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates were also in the data.
SAN reached out to several phone numbers of government employees. An apparent TSA employee answered the phone by introducing themselves with the first name listed in the hacked data, as well as their government position. After SAN explained that their data had been exposed, the employee declined to comment and referred a reporter to the Department of Homeland Security’s public affairs office.
The public affairs office did not respond to an email from SAN. An email to the State Department’s office of press operations went unanswered as well.
Four files containing raw reservation and ticketing data mention airlines, airports, flight numbers and other information. The hacker also claimed that the raw data contained partial credit card information, although SAN was unable to independently verify the presence of financial data.
...
techradar.com 22.08.2025
Qilin claims another victim, threatens to release valuable information online.
Given the nature of Creative Box’s work, the stolen data could hurt the company and dull its competitive blade, if released to the wild, experts have said.
The company is a specialized satellite design studio forming part of Nissan’s global design network. Established in 1987 to be a creative sandbox for emerging designers, where they can create bold concepts that usually stray away from mainstream car design, it is often described as Nissan’s “design think tank”, as it does not churn out large volumes of visible work, but still retains a significant role within the network.
blog.narimangharib.com Nariman Gharib 22.08.2025
Lab-Dookhtegan has been systematically targeting Iranian infrastructure for months now, and when they reached out about their latest operation, I knew it would be significant. This group doesn't mess around - their March attack on 116 vessels proved that. But even knowing their track record, the evidence they shared from their August operation shocked me: 64 ships cut off from the world, navigation systems wiped clean, and digital destruction so thorough that some vessels might be offline for months.
The group hit 39 tankers and 25 cargo ships belonging to Iran's sanctioned maritime giants NITC and IRISL. While they gave media outlets the headline - "ships' communications disrupted" - the technical evidence tells a much darker story.
Let me walk you through what really happened.
The hackers didn't go after the ships directly. That would be nearly impossible - you'd need to compromise dozens of individual vessels scattered across the globe. Instead, they found something better: Fanava Group, an Iranian IT company that just happens to provide satellite communications to the entire fleet.
The screenshots they shared show root access on Linux terminals running iDirect satellite software - version 2.6.35, which is ancient by cybersecurity standards. We're talking about software so old it probably has more known vulnerabilities than my grandmother's Internet Explorer browser.
But here's where it gets interesting. They didn't just pop one system and call it a day. The database dumps show they mapped out the entire fleet - vessel by vessel, modem by modem. I'm looking at MySQL queries pulling records for ships like the Touska, Mahnam, Zardis, and dozens of others. Each entry includes the ship's modem serial number, network IDs, the works. It's like having a complete blueprint of Iran's maritime communication network.
Once inside, the hackers went after something called "Falcon" - the software that keeps these satellite links alive. Think of it as the heart of the ship's communication system. Stop the Falcon, and the ship goes dark. No emails to shore, no weather updates, no port coordination, nothing.
But here's what the email logs actually reveal - and this is huge: the timestamps go back to May and June. That means Lab-Dookhtegan didn't just hit and run in March. They've been sitting inside Iran's maritime network for five months straight. They had persistent access this entire time, could flip systems on and off whenever they wanted, and probably monitored every communication going through.
The "Node Down Notification" alerts I'm seeing are from various points over these months - they were testing their control, making sure they still had the keys. But this time, in August, they didn't just test. They went nuclear.
Scorched Earth at Sea
The attackers didn't just want to disrupt operations - they wanted to cause permanent damage. I found commands showing systematic data destruction:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=1M
For non-technical readers, this is the digital equivalent of taking a hammer to the ship's communication equipment. They overwrote six different storage partitions with zeros. Everything gone - navigation logs, message archives, system configurations, even the recovery partitions that would let you fix the system remotely.
Imagine you're a captain in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and suddenly your satellite terminal isn't just offline - it's been lobotomized. You can't fix it, your IT team can't remote in to help, and the nearest port might be days away.
As if cutting data communications wasn't enough, they also grabbed the entire IP phone system configuration. I'm looking at a spreadsheet with phone numbers, IP addresses, and - this is the embarrassing part - passwords in plain text. We're talking passwords like "1402@Argo" and "1406@Diamond."
With this data, the attackers could theoretically listen to phone calls between ships and ports, impersonate vessels, or just cause more chaos by killing voice communications too.
Why This Matters
NITC and IRISL aren't just any shipping companies. They're the backbone of Iran's sanctions-busting operations. NITC's tankers regularly switch off their tracking systems to secretly deliver oil to China. IRISL has been sanctioned by basically everyone - US, EU, UN - for helping Iran's nuclear program.
These ships operate in the shadows by design, and now they're stuck there - unable to phone home, navigate properly, or even send a distress signal if something goes wrong.
This is Lab-Dookhtegan's second hit this year. They claimed to have disrupted 116 vessels back in March, timing it with US operations against the Houthis in Yemen. This time, the attack comes just as the US Treasury added another 13 companies to the sanctions list for dealing with Iranian oil.
Coincidence? You tell me.
Here's what the public reports missed: this isn't something you fix with a reboot. These ships need physical intervention. Someone has to board each vessel, probably in port, and completely reinstall the communication systems from scratch. We're talking weeks, maybe months, of downtime per ship.
For a sanctions-squeezed fleet that relies on staying under the radar and maintaining precise coordination to avoid seizure, this is catastrophic. You can't evade sanctions if you can't communicate. You can't deliver oil if you can't navigate. You can't even call for help if something goes wrong.
The hackers knew exactly what they were doing. This was precision surgery designed to cripple Iran's maritime operations at the worst possible time.
And based on the evidence I've seen, they succeeded beyond what anyone's reporting.
