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

WASHINGTON - The US Department of Justice on Aug 18 unsealed new and updated charges against 17 individuals working with an Iranian company that it alleges carried out hacks and data theft against US universities, companies and government agencies.

The DOJ said in a statement that the individuals were working with the Mabna Institute, which carried out hacking campaigns on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian government and university clients.

The campaigns targeted hundreds of US and international universities, dozens of US companies, and at least five US state and federal government agencies, it said.

A previous indictment announced in March 2018 had charged nine of the 17 with a hacking campaign that targeted the US Labor Department, the United Nations and computer networks in Hawaii and Indiana.

The Iranian government’s representatives at the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Contact information for the Mabna Institute was not immediately available.

The charges announced on Aug 18 reveal “the broader network allegedly behind a sweeping, state-sponsored campaign to steal research and intellectual property from American universities, businesses, and government institutions”, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jamie McDonald said in the statement.

The US State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme on Aug 18 announced a US$10 million (S$12.8 million) reward for information leading to the location of several of the people included in the Aug 18 charges.

According to the Aug 18 statement by the DOJ, the Mabna Institute since at least 2013 and through 2017 targeted more than 100,000 accounts of professors around the world, including the successful penetration of roughly 8,000 professor email accounts across 144 US-based universities and 178 universities in other countries. REUTERS