New Delhi : OSINT team analysed Bade Saba Calendar, a simple religious app used by millions of Iranians and found exactly why it made the perfect vehicle for a sophisticated cyber-psychological operation. On Saturday morning, following the coordinated Israel-US strike, millions of Iranians looked at their phones where they received a message, “Help has arrived,” on the Bade Saba app – something that had been used so far as a platform to receive prayer updates.
The notification did not come from a mosque, the government, or a news channel. It came from Bade Saba Calendar, Iran’s most widely used Islamic prayer app. On the surface, Bade Saba is a simple religious utility. It shows users the Islamic (Hijri) calendar, which sends reminders for the five daily prayers which includes Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha and pushes the Adhan (the Islamic call to prayer) as a sound alert directly to your lock screen.
It is an app people trust, check five times a day, and never question. Google Play alone lists over 5M+ official downloads, and the app is also available across several third-party platforms including Cafe Bazaar, Softonic, APKPure and others. The notifications, written in Persian, included the message “help has arrived,” as shown in various screenshots shared on social media. This app disruption formed part of a wider cyber campaign.
One message displayed on IRNA’s front page stated: A terrifying hour for the security forces of the Ayatollahs’ regime; the IRGC and the Basij have suffered a crippling blow. In response, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes across the Gulf region, including in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi and near US military bases there, heightening fears of a broader regional conflict.
