DOJ unseals new charges against 17 hackers in Iran-backed campaign

The U.S. Department of Justice announced new and updated charges against 17 individuals accused of participating in a sophisticated hacking and data theft campaign orchestrated by an Iranian company. The DOJ alleges these individuals operated on behalf of the Mabna Institute, which conducted cyberattacks for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian government entities.

The extensive campaign, which ran from at least 2013 through 2017, targeted a wide array of institutions. According to the DOJ, the hackers aimed to steal valuable research and intellectual property from American universities, businesses, and government bodies. The scope of the operation included compromising over 100,000 professor accounts worldwide. Specifically, the hackers successfully accessed approximately 8,000 email accounts belonging to professors at 144 U.S. universities and 178 institutions in other countries.

These latest charges build upon a previous indictment from March 2018, which had already implicated nine of the 17 individuals in a hacking campaign targeting the U.S. Labor Department, the United Nations, and computer networks in Hawaii and Indiana. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, stated that the unsealed charges reveal the extensive network behind this state-sponsored operation. In parallel, the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the apprehension of several individuals named in the new charges.

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the broader network allegedly behind a sweeping, state-sponsored campaign to steal research and intellectual property from American universities, businesses, and government institutions