A fake text message scam telling recipients they had been drafted into the military for deployment to Iran could be part of a cyber campaign launched by the theocratic regime.
Recipients were told to report to nearby recruiting centers for “immediate departure to Iran.” Failure to reply could lead to a fine and six years in jail, one message said. U.S. recruiting centers received several inquiries about the scam, while social media was abuzz with concerned users and those making jokes about leaving the country.
The texts could have been a crude attempt to sow disinformation and build anti-war sentiment in the United States.
“United States Official Army Draft, we tried contacting you through the mail several times and have had no response,” said one text message, sent out after a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. “You’ve been marked eligible and must come to the nearest recruitment branch in Jacksonville, Florida for immediate departure to Iran.”
Annie Fixler, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Cyber and Technology innovation, said Iran was known to engage in cyberattacks through both its own sources and unofficial “hacktivist” supporters. Last year, Facebook, Twitter, and Google countered an Iranian misinformation operation that included hundreds of accounts Iranian hackers created to encourage support for the regime.
Fixler said this text scam, however, appeared more sophisticated. “I suspected that those responsible for this recent Army text message scam may have some experience in that Facebook, Google, Twitter operation, or in a similar operation,” she told the Washington Examiner.
“Iranian hackers are not as competent at information operations as their Russian counterparts. They tend to be less fluent in English, so their grammar is not as good. It tends to give them away a little bit more quickly.” She added, “We’re likely to see a number of different Iranian-linked cyber operations over the next period of time.”
Earlier this week, U.S. Africa Command blamed Iran for spreading false claims that its commander, Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, was killed in an al Shabab raid on a Kenyan air base on Sunday. The state-sponsored Fars News pushed out the claim, according to AFRICOM, followed by several Iranian-linked social media accounts.
U.S. Army Recruiting Command told the Washington Examiner it did not know how many calls it received about the scam and that it received no reports of anyone actually walking into a recruiting center about it. “As far as we know at this point, recruiters are just receiving phone calls and texts asking about the validity of the messages,” spokeswoman Lisa Ferguson said.
The Selective Service, which oversees registration for the draft, stated, “The Selective Service is conducting business as usual. In the event that a national emergency necessitates a draft, Congress and the President would need to pass official legislation to authorize a draft.”
Before America’s draft system ended in 1973, more than 2 million young men were drafted during the Vietnam War.
