Iran-linked hackers hit medical giant Stryker in retaliatory cyberattack

Group claims to have seized 50 terabytes of data in response to deadly US-Israeli strikes on Iranian school that killed more than 170 people.Published On 11 Mar 2026A major cyberattack has crippled the global networks of Stryker, one of the world’s largest medical device companies, with an Iran-linked hacking group claiming responsibility and warning it marks “the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare”.Handala, a hacking persona with documented ties to Tehran, said it carried out the attack in retaliation for the killing of more than 170 people, most of them schoolgirls, in a strike on a school in the southern Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the US-Israeli military war against Iran.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Displaced Lebanese families seek refuge in school shelterlist 2 of 3UN Security Council adopts Gulf countries’ draft resolutionlist 3 of 3How Trump has addressed the deadly Iran school bombingend of listAn investigation by Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations Unit of satellite imagery found that the school was possibly deliberately targeted.Six senior Democratic senators in the United States have called for an investigation into the strike, saying in a joint statement that they were “horrified” by the incident.The hacking group said it had seized 50 terabytes of company data, which it claimed was “now in the hands of the free people of the world.”The outages began shortly after midnight on the US East Coast on Wednesday, knocking out Windows-based devices, including laptops and mobile phones, connected to Stryker’s systems.The Michigan-based company confirmed it was “experiencing a global network disruption to our Microsoft environment as a result of a cyberattack,” adding it had found no evidence of ransomware or malware and believed the incident was contained.Staff reported that Handala’s logo had appeared on company login pages. Calls to Stryker’s headquarters in Portage, Michigan met a recorded message saying the company was dealing with “a building emergency.”