Israel turns vast network of surveillance cameras in Iran into a killing tool

Israeli authorities have managed to seize control of street surveillance cameras in Iran and use them in operations to assassinate the country's highest-ranking officials, a tool that is increasingly used in modern wars.

Hundreds of millions of cameras are installed above shops, in homes and at intersections around the world, many connected to the internet and poorly protected. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed the military and intelligence agencies to sift through vast amounts of surveillance footage and identify targets.

The potential for such systems to be hacked and used against adversaries was demonstrated by Israel on February 28, when it monitored Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei using street cameras in Tehran, according to experts and analysis of leaked data, public statements and Associated Press reports.

The use of hacked surveillance cameras in the operation to assassinate Khamenei, along with intelligence, was described to the AP by an intelligence official familiar with the operation and another person.

Iran has installed tens of thousands of cameras in the capital in response to waves of protests. The last time it installed new cameras was in January, when mass demonstrations across the country ended in a bloody crackdown by the authorities on protesters, in which thousands of Iranians were killed.

That Tehran's cameras were compromised was no secret: the city's cameras have been hacked multiple times since 2021, and last year a high-ranking Iranian politician publicly warned that Israel had compromised the cameras, posing a threat to national security.

Connor Healy, research director at surveillance research publication IPVM, said the assassination of Khamenei illustrates a pressing problem.

“The irony is that the infrastructure that authoritarian states build to make their rule impregnable is perhaps what makes their leaders most visible to the people trying to kill them,” Healy said.

For years, cybersecurity experts have warned that cameras could be hacked for war.

Security engineer Paul Marapeze discovered in 2019 that he could easily hack into millions of cameras from his home office in California. Although he has spoken out about it repeatedly since then, the number of unprotected cameras is growing. A scan of unprotected camera footage this year turned up about three million hits in nearly every country in the world, including nearly 2.000 cameras in Iran alone, Marapeze told the AP.

"There are millions and millions of these cameras around the world," Marapeze said, adding that many are easy to hack because they are "dumb."

Companies are advertising internet-connected cameras accessible via mobile phones, whose footage can be easily redirected. Many have been installed by inexperienced users with minimal security, who don’t set passwords or install security settings. Securing cameras requires constant vigilance, while hacking requires identifying a single exposed vulnerability, such as an outdated system or the generic password “1234.”

Even surveillance systems set up by governments on networks separate from the internet are vulnerable: all it takes is one insider to compromise such systems.

Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that Israel is under constant cyberattacks from Iran, but that it has so far managed to defend itself against them.

For years, hacking cameras for war was a theory. But in 2023, Hamas hacked surveillance cameras in southern Israel ahead of the October 7 attack, allowing the group to track Israeli army patrols and aid in the attack. That same year, a Ukrainian official said Russia had tried to hijack cameras near a rocket launcher, and in 2024, the Russians hacked cameras in Kiev and last year at border crossings.

Experts say advances in artificial intelligence have allowed the military to overcome a key hurdle in turning hacked footage into a weapon: searching through vast amounts of video to identify people, vehicles and other targets, a task that once took weeks or months but can now be done in real time. With a simple keyword search, artificial intelligence can scan webcams and return results almost instantly.

Iranian cameras have been hacked multiple times in recent years. In 2021, an Iranian exile group released footage of abuse at Tehran's Evin prison. In 2022, another group claimed to have hacked over 5.000 cameras across Tehran, posting gigabytes of footage and internal data on a Telegram channel.

During the 12-day war last summer, Israel used Tehran-based cameras to monitor and bomb meeting places of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, wounding Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to Iranian lawmakers and an Israeli documentary.

"All the cameras at our intersections are in the hands of Israel. Everything on the internet is in their hands, as soon as we move, they know," Mahmoud Nabavian, deputy chairman of Iran's parliament's National Security Committee, said in September.

The vulnerabilities have emerged amid increased use of surveillance cameras in Iran following the protests. Cameras on the subway, for example, are being used to detect women not wearing the mandatory hijab, with facial recognition used to identify violators.

Data collected to consolidate control creates a convenient target for hackers, said researcher Michael Custer, who has investigated the sale of Chinese surveillance technology to Iran.

Iran, long under Western sanctions, faces difficulties in updating its hardware and software, relying on Chinese-made electronics or older systems. Pirated versions of Windows and other software are common, making it easy for hackers to gain access.

The Financial Times previously reported on the use of cameras in Khamenei's assassination. A person familiar with the operation told the AP that almost all traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years and the information transferred to servers in Israel.

At least one camera was at an angle that allowed Israel to track people’s movements, such as in a parking lot near the Iranian leadership compound. Algorithms helped provide information, including people’s addresses, routes to work, and who was protecting them. The attack had been planned for months, and accelerated when it was determined that Khamenei and top officials would be at the compound that morning.

Colonel Amit Asa, a former official with Israel's Shin Bet security service, said such operations are driven by many sources of intelligence, but cameras play a key role in identifying targets and providing confirmation for the attack.

Cyber ​​threat group Check Point Research says Iranian hacking of cameras has increased since the start of the war, with increased activity in Israel and Gulf states such as Bahrain and the UAE. Such attacks help Iran track targets and assess damage after missile strikes.

Analysts estimate that more than a billion security cameras have been installed worldwide, three times as many as ten years ago, with hundreds of millions of new ones being installed annually.

Muhanad Selum, a professor in Doha, said that oil-rich Gulf countries had previously tightly secured their facilities, but only recently realized that street cameras could also be used as weapons.

"I don't think anyone expected traffic cameras to become targeting tools. There's a buzz everywhere. How was the entire Iranian leadership beheaded on the first day? That's the topic of conversation," said Sellum.

Gulf monarchies have banned residents from filming Iranian attacks, and the UAE has arrested dozens of people for sharing videos of the conflict. While the aim is to protect the country's reputation, the bans are also motivated by fears that the footage could be used by the Iranian military.

Israel's National Cybersecurity Director has warned hundreds of camera owners and urged the public to change passwords and update software to prevent attacks.