U.S.-Sanctioned Terrorist Broadcasters Distributed on Piracy Platforms Reaching American Homes, Investigation Finds

Digital Citizens Alliance and risk3sixty find Hezbollah's Al-Manar, a U.S.-designated terrorist entity, bundled alongside movies and live sports on 17 of 25 illicit streaming services tested

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadcasters controlled by terrorist-designated organizations Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and Kata'ib Hezbollah - collectively responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans - are being distributed to American households through illicit piracy streaming services, packaged alongside movies and live sports, according to an investigation by the Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) and cybersecurity firm risk3sixty.

Researchers found broadcasters affiliated with designated terrorist organizations or sanctioned foreign states on 17 of the 25 piracy platforms it examined. All were accessible over U.S. Internet connections. Al-Manar, Hezbollah's official broadcaster, was most prevalent, appearing on all 17 services carrying such programming. The State Department placed Al-Manar on the State Department's Terrorist Exclusion List in 2004 and the Treasury Department designated it as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity in March 2006.

The findings appear in a new report, Hostile Signals: How Illicit Piracy Platforms Give Terrorist-Controlled and Sanctioned Foreign Broadcasters Access to American Homes.

The joint investigation documents how piracy platforms provide organizations associated with terrorist organizations or other U.S. adversaries a commercial distribution system, operating outside U.S. law, that grants them access to paying American subscribers who never went looking for them. Access to the U.S. market is troubling considering the intelligence community's March 2026 assessment that Islamist terrorist groups have shifted toward information operations intended to spread propaganda and to inspire "lone wolf" attacks by individuals with access to the West.

"Piracy platforms give terrorist organizations a back door to access the U.S. market, circumventing two decades of efforts to keep these organizations from being able to broadcast into American homes," said Tom Galvin, Executive Director of the Digital Citizens Alliance.

"Our investigation found that piracy services routinely package terrorist-controlled broadcasters alongside everyday entertainment, creating a distribution channel that operates outside traditional safeguards. When extremist content is embedded in the same interface as sports, movies, and news, it becomes far less visible to those working to identify and disrupt radicalization efforts," said Steven Guris, threat intelligence lead at risk3sixty.

In the report, Digital Citizens and risk3sixty make three recommendations to lawmakers and law enforcement to address this national security threat:

• Site-blocking Legislation. Site-blocking is a legal process to block access from the United States to foreign websites. While it's generally designed to combat infringers, it could address the problem of terrorist-linked broadcasters being distributed through piracy services by disrupting the piracy networks that carry their content. Legislation before Congress proposes a judicially supervised remedy aimed only at large-scale foreign piracy operations. While copyright owners drive the petition process, if the result is blocking piracy sites that carry the outlets of terrorist organizations, then site-blocking provides a national security benefit.
  
  In a September 2026 research survey of over 1,000 Americans, 65 percent supported allowing courts to order Internet providers to block access to foreign websites that distribute pirated content. Only 10 percent were opposed.

• Treasury Sanctions Advisory. Treasury regularly issues sector-specific advisories alerting industries to sanctions exposure. An advisory directed at piracy operators, resellers, and the payment processors and hosting providers that serve them would put the industry on notice that carriage of Specially Designated Global Terrorist-owned broadcasters creates sanctions exposure.
  
  
• Justice Department Domain Seizures. DOJ has seized domains for broadcasters owned or controlled by terrorist-designated organizations. Those cases were straightforward: a designated entity cannot obtain U.S. domain services without a Treasury Department license. Piracy platforms are harder. They aren't designated entities, so any case turns on what operators knew and kept carrying. But the predicate now exists - named services, named channels, confirmed U.S. access. DOJ should determine which operators fall within U.S. jurisdiction, put them and their registrars, hosts, and payment processors on formal notice, and seize where carriage continues afterward.

The full report is available at https://hostile-signals.digitalcitizensalliance.org/.

About Digital Citizens Alliance
The Digital Citizens Alliance is a nonprofit, 501(c)(6) organization that is a consumer-oriented coalition focused on educating the public and policymakers on the threats that consumers face on the Internet. Digital Citizens wants to create a dialogue on the importance for Internet stakeholders—individuals, government, and industry—to make the Web a safer place. Based in Washington, DC, the Digital Citizens Alliance counts among its supporters: private citizens, the health, pharmaceutical, and creative industries, as well as online safety experts and other communities focused on Internet safety. Learn more about Digital Citizens Alliance.

About risk3sixty

risk3sixty is an elite boutique cybersecurity firm headquartered in the greater Atlanta area, serving clients nationwide with continuous threat exposure management (CTEM), threat intelligence, and proactive security services through its Armada Proactive Services practice. Unlike software-only exposure management platforms that bury teams in unvalidated alerts, Armada embeds senior practitioners who run continuous threat intelligence, manually exploit findings to prove what's actually dangerous, and stay on every exposure until it's closed for good. In addition, risk3sixty offers a comprehensive suite of services for CISOs, including internal audit, compliance, and GRC program optimization.

Learn more about risk3sixty's proactive services at https://risk3sixty.com/secure

Contact: Adam Benson, [email protected], 202.999.9104 

SOURCE Digital Citizens Alliance