US Announces ‘Massive and Brazen’ Hacking Scheme by Iran By Rick Moran
https://pjmedia.com/trending/us-announces-massive-brazen-hacking-scheme-iran/
The US Department of Justice announced indictments against nine Iranians and the company they worked for who stole data valued in the billions of dollars from professors and others.
The Iranians were part of a huge scheme to steal valuable research and intellectual property from US and foreign universities. In addition to the indictments, the Justice Department recommended sanctioning the individuals and the company, the Mabna Institute.
The US directly connected the hacking operation to the Iranian government, saying the hackers were working for the Revolutionary Guards.
“(W)e have unmasked criminals who normally work in total anonymity, hiding behind the ones and zeros of computer code,” said Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who called it a “massive and brazen cyberassault.”
The move from the Justice Department and Treasury follows other US efforts to indict foreign government-linked cyberattackers, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of Russian operatives for meddling in the 2016 US election, and the Obama administration’s indictment of Chinese military members for the government-sponsored hacking of US companies.
It also comes at a time of tension with Iran, long an adversary of the US. As President Donald Trump reshuffles his national security and diplomacy team, including firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, experts speculate Trump may be laying the groundwork to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated, though Iran’s cyber efforts were not part of that deal.
Officials also stressed that the hacking was conducted at the behest of the Iranian government, and Mabna Institute functioned as a contractor for the Revolutionary Guard. Sigal Mandelker, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, stressed that the elite military wing has been a primary actor behind Iran’s sponsorship and encouragement of terrorism.
“The IRGC plays a central role in Iran’s maligned activities across the world, including fomenting terrorism,” Mandelker said.
It appears that the he Iranians were able to access the information with ease:
The indictment alleges the Mabna Institute targeted more than 100,000 professors worldwide and succeeded in compromising 8,000 of them, spread across 144 US-based universities and 176 foreign universities. In their crosshairs were various types of intellectual property, including academic journals, dissertations and electronic books. CONTINUE AT SITE
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