Video Shows Moment Iranian Prison Realizes It Was Hacked

Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard’s podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.

At first it just seems like one computer is having issues as it goes black and displays a reboot screen. Then a few others start changing. Then another displays a message: “Cyberattack,” and “General protest until the freedom of political prisoners.” Then several flash orange at the same time and then show the message too. The prison guard leaves the room and summons his colleagues: they’ve been hacked.

A video shows the moment officials from a notorious Iranian prison realized they had been targeted by a hacker. The hackers obtained videos of guards beating inmates and provided the footage to the Associated Press, which reported on the abuses on Monday.

Political prisoners who say they’ve been tortured have been kept at Evin, the prison. Four former inmates of the prison told the Associated Press the footage, which shows a solitary confinement cell, does resemble scenes from the facility. According to the Associated Press, another video shows guards beating a man in a  prisoner’s uniform, and many prisoners held in single-room cells.

Mohammad Mehdi Hajmohammadi, the head of Iran’s prison system, later acknowledged that the footage was real, and said he takes responsibility for the “unacceptable behaviors.”

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