US Charges 17 Iranian Hackers in Global Cyber Campaign
The US Department of Justice has charged 17 individuals allegedly linked to Iran's Mabna Institute in a massive cyber campaign. The group, which worked for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other government clients, hacked into hundreds of universities, companies, and organizations worldwide, stealing at least 31.5 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property.
The indictment alleges that six defendants were directly involved in the 2017 HBO hack, which included an attempt to extort the company for roughly $6 million in Bitcoin. The hackers allegedly used spearphishing and stolen credentials to steal research, academic journals, theses, dissertations, ebooks, and other material.
The Mabna Institute also targeted more than 100,000 professor accounts worldwide and compromised roughly 8,000 accounts across 144 US universities and 178 foreign universities. The State Department is offering rewards of up to $10 million for information leading to the location of five defendants.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have escalated amid the ongoing war, while the US has stepped up efforts to disrupt crypto networks it says Iran and the IRGC use to move money and evade sanctions.