The U.N. Panel of Experts on Yemen concluded in an unreleased draft report that thousands of armaments intended for Houthi rebels in Yemen probably were drawn from Iranian government stocks and shipped from the Iranian port of Jask. The Panel inspected three shipments intercepted by the United States and Saudi Arabia from stateless dhows in 2020 and 2021 and concluded all three likely departed from Jask, a growing port city that hosts a naval base and oil terminal. The shipments contained weapons that were originally manufactured in Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Iran, and Russia, as well as thermal sights manufactured by an Iranian-Chinese partnership. Iran continues to deny any arms trade with the Houthis, and the Houthis' information minister called the accusation "an illusion."

An Iranian defense ministry spokesperson confirmed that a rocket launched on December 30 failed to deliver its three satellite payloads into orbit. The Simorgh space launch vehicle had not reached the speed necessary to enter orbit. The United States, France, and Germany criticized the launch and said it violated a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution that called upon Iran not to test ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The United States has alleged that Iran's space program is a cover used to develop ballistic missiles, a claim Tehran denies.

On December 21, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that EU-based firms can terminate contracts with Iranian companies if adhering to the contract would cause "disproportionate economic loss" due to U.S. sanctions. The existence of a "blocking statute," which prohibits EU companies from complying with U.S. sanctions on Iran that were re-imposed when the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, had previously cast legal doubt on such terminations. The lawsuit at issue involved a terminated contract between Deutsche Telekom and Bank Melli, a U.S.-sanctioned Iranian bank. Deutsche Telekom argued that the contract could harm its business, of which about half comes from its operations in the United States. The ECJ remanded the case to a court in Hamburg to determine whether such a loss will occur if the contract is upheld. 

Microsoft issued a public warning on December 14 that hackers linked to the governments of China, Iran, North Korea, and Turkey are working to exploit a flaw in the Java-based Log4j software that could affect hundreds of millions of computer systems, including those used by governments and major corporations. According to Microsoft, the Iranian group has deployed ransomware in the past. A senior US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official said that there was no evidence federal networks had been breached.