Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes — says devices from Cisco and others failed despite blackout in attack that ‘indicates deep sabotage’

Iranian state media has alleged that equipment from Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, and MikroTik failed during U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran. The report, which claims that “American ‘black boxes’ failed at zero hour of the attack on Isfahan,” concerns devices that Iran claims either rebooted or dropped offline despite the country having already been disconnected from the global Internet, a fact it says “indicates deep sabotage.”

Iranian media speculates that hidden firmware or backdoors allowed remote sabotage, possibly triggered by satellite or at a pre-set time. None of the claims has been independently verified, and given that the claims originate from state media, some skepticism is merited.