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The Deployment of Hybrid Threats and Cyfluence Operations in the Iran War

  • Writer: CRC
    CRC
  • 2 days ago
  • 2 min read
Cover image for a report titled "Pro-Palestine Mobilization and Digital Influence at Columbia University," featuring the Alma Mater statue with red paint.


Since the outbreak of the Iran War (Operation Epic Fury) on 28 February 2026, the conflict has emerged as a landmark case study in modern hybrid warfare, one defined not just by airstrikes and military force, but by the seamless integration of cyber operations and information warfare into a unified offensive strategy.


Cyfluence Research Center (CRC) examines what analysts are calling "cyfluence" operations: the coordinated fusion of cyber capabilities with influence campaigns designed to shape perceptions, sow confusion, and degrade morale. Key incidents documented include the compromise of Iran's BadeSaba prayer app, which was hijacked on the first day of strikes to push surrender messages to millions of Iranian users, and the simultaneous kinetic strike and broadcast hijack of state television network IRIB, through which messages from Israeli PM Netanyahu and President Trump were beamed directly to Iranian audiences.


Beyond these high-profile operations, the report details Iranian-linked disinformation efforts, including networks of sockpuppet accounts impersonating Chinese, Russian, and North Korean state media, alongside the prolific hack-and-leak activities of the Iran-aligned hacktivist group Handala, whose claimed targets ranged from Israeli universities to FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email.


The report concludes that cyfluence is no longer a peripheral tactic, it has become the operational logic of modern warfare, where controlling how events are perceived may matter as much as controlling territory.


Key Takeaways


  • The current war in Iran and the wider Middle East (also known as Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion) has demonstrated a remarkably close integration between varied forms of kinetic and hybrid warfare, including combined cyber-enabled influence (cyfluence) operations, employed in tandem to maximize strategic effects.

  • As such, Hostile Influence Campaigns (HICs) and Coordinated Information Disorder (CID) increasingly function as Primary Offensive Efforts (POEs) alongside the use of military force.

  • Russia and China – Iran’s most powerful allies – have played an important role during the conflict, providing continuous diplomatic backing, supplying tactical intelligence, and executing supportive offensive information operations, while exploiting newly-created cognitive attack surfaces.

  • AI-assisted DISARM mapping is employed throughout this report to render cyfluence attack chains analytically tractable, building on methodologies for agentic AI operationalization of influence operation analysis frameworks.

Author: The CRC Team

[Download PDF Here]



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