‘Star Wars’ Fan Site Revealed as Former CIA Spy Network Tool

In a revelation that sounds more like the plot of a spy thriller than real life, security researchers have uncovered that a now-defunct Star Wars fan site—starwarsweb.net—was in fact a covert communications tool operated by the CIA.

The website, active in the early 2010s, appeared to be a run-of-the-mill fan portal, complete with links to Star Wars Insider, toy ads for LEGO and Gentle Giant collectibles, and standard franchise fare. But thanks to the work of independent security researcher Ciro Santilli, and corroborated by 404 Media’s Joseph Cox and cybersecurity expert Zach Edwards, it’s now been confirmed that the site had a hidden purpose: covertly relaying messages between CIA handlers and assets worldwide.

According to reports, operatives would enter a special password into the site’s search function, which triggered a log-in prompt to access secure, non-public communication channels. It’s believed starwarsweb.net was just one of over 800 similarly disguised websites used by the CIA during this period.

The entire network came crashing down after Iranian intelligence uncovered the method, prompting a frantic scramble by the CIA to shut down or reconfigure its web infrastructure. That breach reportedly led to the capture or execution of over two dozen informants in China between 2011 and 2012, according to earlier reporting by Yahoo! News.

While the original site has long been offline, Santilli’s sleuthing—using archived IP ranges, DNS histories, and forensic HTML analysis—helped link the domain to the CIA’s covert network. Experts now view this as a cautionary tale about the long shadow of operational mistakes made in a rush to innovate.

As bizarre as it sounds, the CIA really did hide a spy network behind a Star Wars fan site. For actual fan-run platforms like StarWarsNewsNet, the revelation comes as a reminder: in the galaxy of Star Wars fandom, not all traffic is what it seems.