Multiple defense officials told DefenseScoop Sunday that a viral message purporting to be from U.S. Cyber Command wasn’t sent by the command. The message claimed Cybercom was warning troops to turn off location services from their electronic devices and that multiple commercial applications were compromised, all amid the ongoing military operations against Iran.
The message — reviewed by DefenseScoop — was circulating in some military circles and social media Sunday. It urged “all U.S. service members” to turn off location services from their electronic devices. It also said that Uber, Snapchat and a food delivery service that operates in the Middle East known as Talabat were “compromised.”
“Due to operational security concerns, U.S. Cyber Command does not comment nor discuss cyber intelligence, plans, operations, capabilities, or effects,” one official told DefenseScoop, requesting attribution as a Department of War official, the preferred name for the Pentagon under the Trump administration. “The command did not issue messages to US service members to turn off location services on their electronic devices and did not issue messages that applications had been compromised.”
The statement did not address where the correspondence originated from and why it was circulating in the military community.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said the message was “false.” Centcom is responsible for overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
“We have no indication that this rumor is true regarding Uber,” a spokesperson for the company told DefenseScoop. Uber also took to social media to respond to accounts spreading the message, calling it an “unsubstantiated rumor.”
Following the launch of joint U.S.-Israel strikes against Iran starting Saturday, false and misleading information about the operation have flooded social media, WIRED reported. U.S. Central Command said Iran had issued “multiple bogus claims” over the last two days about the operation.
The origin of the message is unclear, however, and it spread through various military channels on Sunday. An account with more than 40,000 followers posted the message on social media, which had racked up hundreds of thousands of views, and pushed the claim, as did other users.
While U.S. officials denied the validity of the message, concerns have previously been raised about Iran’s cyber capabilities. Last summer, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned that Iranian-affiliated cyber actors “often exploit targets of opportunity” based on unpatched or outdated software.
The so-called 12-day War between Iran and Israel last year revealed how Tehran-linked actors used “a broad range of operations designed to exert psychological pressure, collect tactical intelligence, enforce deterrence against third countries, and maintain domestic control,” according to the Middle East Institute. MEI said Iran had also “intensified its psychological operations through the use of AI to generate and disseminate disinformation.”
The new military campaign against Iran that was launched Saturday, known as Operation Epic Fury, is ongoing. U.S. Central Command said Sunday that three U.S. service members were killed during the operation.
Cybercom referred DefenseScoop to the Pentagon for comment Sunday. Spokespeople for Snapchat and Talabat did not immediately respond to the publication’s questions.
