Iranian dissidents take over high

Jun 22, 2023

A group of Iranian dissidents, self-described as "GhyamSarnegouni" (meaning "Rise to Overthrow" in Farsi), has claimed responsibility for taking control of and defacing several Iranian presidency-linked websites on Monday. The dissidents have taken down these heavily protected websites, replacing images of Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi with those of Massoud Rajavi, the Leader Iranian Resistance, and Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Other websites showed images of Khamenei and Raisi crossed out.

One of the sites even displayed the slogan "Death to Khamenei/Raisi! Hail to Rajavi!" This incident follows a previous disruption by the same group that targeted websites associated with the regime's Foreign Ministry earlier this month. "GhyamSarnegouni" had reported they were able to obtain over 50 terabytes of data from the regime's Foreign Ministry servers.

The regime has been the target of a series of damning and embarrassing hacks in recent times, including those targeting its nuclear program, state television signal, and even government surveillance cameras.

The dissident group has provided extensive details about today's disruption and defacing of Iranian presidency-linked websites. These include access to top secret documents and defacings, such as: