Why Risk Leaders Should Pay Attention To Iranian Unrest In Their Third-Party Strategies

Iran is currently experiencing some of the most profound political and economic instability seen in decades. The protests across the country show the cascading effects of economic near-collapse on modern autocracies, and their tendency to spill over into massive civil unrest. Impacts have spread far beyond the region itself, including deep supply chain vulnerabilities. Verdantix covered the impact of an information void across Kashmir and its effects on risk management and real-time monitoring in 2025, but the scale of the internet shutdowns across Iran has now exceeded regional precedent in both duration and operational consequence. Far beyond simple information reductions, Iran’s shutdowns have effectively severed any visibility into supplier zones, key assets, and logistical and financial arteries. This deliberate weaponization of opacity has further destabilized the country, leaving millions of people out of contact amidst one of the most brutal government crackdowns in the 21^st century. Meanwhile, it has pushed the private tech sector into a merciless, hyper-politicized and ethnoreligious information battleground.

For organizations trying to navigate the crisis, the sudden replacement of the overt internet with a parallel, shadow, illegal data surface entangles them in a web of nuanced exposures for which most TPRM frameworks are not designed. Reportedly, up to 50,000 Starlink devices – banned inside the country under an espionage act – have now been smuggled into Iran. With military-grade jamming tactics being rolled out, partners in the region have become reliant on using a criminalized communication channel for visibility. Internal disruption could include suppliers or intermediaries being prosecuted after satellite log reviews in the coming weeks and months.

The situation remains fluid even as this text goes to print. In mid-January, the regime threatened a permanent communications blackout that would completely seal the country off from the outside world. By the end of the month, evidence was mounting that the Iranian government was throttling connectivity, meaning – if anything – that an assortment of content blocking is taking hold. Thus, another core aspect of this issue is how criminal networks have quickly become embedded within shadow connectivity channels. Already heavily sanctioned, any remaining – and tightly controlled – UK/EU trade relations with Iran (such as humanitarian aid and other sanctions-compliant cargos) now risk falling into a trap where internal data misuse could be considered financially or strategically beneficial to the aims of the regime. While the European Commission outlines a narrow caveat here for selected operators, the introduction of shadow channels destabilizes each assumption of this exception: data custody and manipulation, identity assurance, and traceability of funds have all but imploded.

This should be of concern to all risk leaders because Iran is not necessarily the anomaly in this scenario; it is, instead, the prototype. Shadow connectivity and smuggling networks are not national, but regional on a wider scale, and the propagation of internally criminalized logistics infrastructure across neighbouring states with their own constrained digital laws – such as Pakistan’s Web Monitoring System 2.0 – will see risk creep up silently. Third-party risk strategies must, therefore, evolve from assessing static controls to interrogating the information environment from the bottom up. Risk leaders must:

• Assess not just supplier controls, but supplier communications sovereignty.
• Stress-test third-party ecosystems for scenarios where the state becomes the primary adversary to information flow.
• Build detection logic for shadow-connectivity conditions such as irregular telemetry drops, sudden routing changes and illegal satellite spikes.
• Recognize that a single blackout state can destabilize visibility across an entire regional supply chain.
• Gain a deep understanding of the national laws where a partner operates. Those who overlook emergency power capabilities, espionage laws and satellite use restrictions will misjudge their true exposure.

Organizations who treat Iran as an outlier will be at risk. Those who treat it as a model will be prepared.

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