Israel Hacked Popular Iranian Prayer App to Urge Defections, Resistance -- WSJ

Dow Jones03-01

By Dov Lieber and Dustin Volz

Israel hacked a popular Iranian prayer app to send notifications to potentially millions of phones Saturday morning urging the country's military personnel to defect from the regime and join a fight to liberate the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

The app, BadeSaba Calendar, is intended to help Muslims track prayer times and has wide reach within Iran. It has been downloaded over 5 million times from the Google Play app store alone. The burst of app notifications Saturday morning were sent in Persian and included a message that "help has arrived," according to various screenshots posted on social media.

The app hack appeared to be one disruption in a broader wave of cyber operations that coincided with Israeli and U.S. military strikes. Iranian state media reported that some news sites, including state news agency IRNA, were hijacked to display articles about Saturday's attacks and discredit the regime. "A terrifying hour for the security forces of the Ayatollahs' regime; the IRGC and the Basij have suffered a crippling blow," one message on IRNA's front page read.

This item is part of a Wall Street Journal live coverage event. The full stream can be found by searching P/WSJL (WSJ Live Coverage).

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 28, 2026 12:08 ET (17:08 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

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