Iranian state media claimed that equipment from vendors, including Cisco, Juniper Networks, MikroTik, and Fortinet suddenly disconnected from networks just as the U.S. attacked the country’s nuclear facilities last June.

First spotted by The Reg, Fars News Agency claimed that devices “malfunctioned” despite Iran being cut off from the global internet at the time. Having closed itself off to the connected world as a means to crack down on anti-government protests, the state media outlet claims that just before "bunker buster" bombs were dropped by B-2 stealth bombers, devices either “suddenly disconnected from the network or their operating systems ‘jumped.’”

Iranian media claims the outages weren’t a coincidence, asserting that either there were “hidden backdoors” in devices at the bootloader and firmware level, or the U.S. has the means to send malicious packets at the internal layer – despite devices not being connected to international gateways.

Other theories put forward by Fars include suggestions that malware was planted “years ago” and hidden in the memory of routers and switches, playing dormant until a potential attack, or that products were being tampered with during production.

Iranian state media claimed the Isfahan instances meant its backbone “cannot be built on equipment whose circuit design and source code are in the hands of potential enemies,” likening it to "Operation Grim Beeper," in which handheld pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon simultaneously exploded after tampering by Israeli intelligence operatives.

The assertions from Iranian state media regarding the "Twelve-Day War" come as the U.S. finds itself locked in a more prolonged conflict with Iran, with a tentative ceasefire being strained by a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Fars’ assertions over the June 2025 U.S. cyberattacks come as its country’s cybersecurity means sit front of its military prowess.

During a March press briefing, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Air Force Gen. Dan Caine described the roles of his agencies in "Operation Epic Fury," stating that U.S. Cyber Command acted as “first movers,” responsible for “layering non-kinetic effects, disrupting and degrading and blinding Iran's ability to see, communicate, and respond.”

While in January, "Operation Absolute Resolve" – the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro – saw Cyber Command and other agencies interrupt connectivity in the capital Caracas, including creating a blackout for special forces to move in, with President Trump adding: “The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have … it was dark and it was deadly.”