U.S. Company Taken Offline by Cyberattack as Revenge for Missile Strike on Iranian School

Iran-linked hacking group Handala claimed responsibility for a cyberattack against the U.S. medical equipment company Stryker on Wednesday. The group said the hack was retaliation for a U.S. missile strike against an elementary school on the first day of the Iran War which killed at least 175 people.

The cyberattack reportedly caused a global outage at Stryker that started in the early morning hours of Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal, though the company says it’s over.

“We announce to the world that, in retaliation for the brutal attack on the Minab school and in response to ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance, our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” the hackers said in a statement published online.

The hacking group went on to call Stryker a “Zionist-rooted corporation” and a “central ring in the ‘New Epstein’ chain.” The group claims it wiped 50 terabytes of critical data, something that couldn’t be independently confirmed.

“A clear warning to all Zionist leaders and their lobbies who hide behind concrete walls and closed windows: The era of the ‘Epstein’ rings and the demons of our time is over,” the group continued in its statement.

Epstein appears to be a reference to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was “best friends” with President Donald Trump and died in jail in 2019.

Stryker has over 53,000 employees globally and had $22.6 billion in 2024, according to Bleeping Computer, which also notes that devices used with the company’s mobile device management system were deleted remotely.

Stryker filed a Form 8-K with the SEC on Wednesday confirming the company had been hit with a cyberattack but it claims there’s “no indication of ransomware or malware and believes the incident is contained.”

“The Company’s investigation of the cybersecurity incident is ongoing, and the full scope, nature and impacts, including operational and financial impacts, of the incident are not yet known,” the filing reads. “Accordingly, the Company has not yet determined whether the incident is reasonably likely to have a material impact on the Company.”

The cyberattack is a notable development in the cyber war between the U.S. and Iran that’s inevitably part of any modern conflict. Israel and the U.S. first launched unprovoked attacks against Iran on Feb. 28, assassinating much of the country’s top leadership, including the Supreme Leader. But there had yet been no visible cyberattacks from Iran against U.S. interests.

Iran has fought back against U.S. and Israeli attacks with its own drones and missiles, including against oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil travels through the area, which is effectively shut down.

Iranian semi-official news outlet Tasnim News Agency reports that U.S. tech companies will be targeted in the Middle East, including Microsoft, Google, Palantir, IBM, Nvidia, and Oracle offices.

Handala also announced an attack against electronic payments company Verifone, which the hacking group refers to as Israeli. Verifone is based in New York. While the group posted screenshots claiming to show Verifone’s internal systems those images could not be verified.

Handala has tried to set up at least two different X accounts to make announcements on Wednesday, according to the group’s Telegram account, but they have been suspended.

News broke Wednesday in the New York Times that the missile strike against the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran, was conducted by the U.S. and may have been a result of outdated information. The school building used to be part of a nearby military facility but hasn’t been associated with the base in at least a decade.

There’s been widespread speculation that the strike could be blame on AI, but the Times suggests that’s unlikely and suggested the ongoing investigation was likely to blame “human error.”

More than 175 people died in the attack on the school, most of them children, according to the Times. Since the start of the war, at least 1,800 people have died in both Iran and Lebanon, where Israel is also conducting strikes daily.