The United States unveiled charges on Friday against nine Iranians for their alleged involvement in a massive state-sponsored hacking scheme which targeted hundreds of universities in the US and abroad and stole "valuable intellectual property and data."

Ten Iranians were also hit with sanctions along with an Iranian company, the Mabna Institute, which engaged in computer hacking on behalf of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the US Treasury Department said.

The two founders of the Mabna Institute, Gholamreza Rafatnejad, 38, and Ehsan Mohammadi, 37, were among the nine Iranians indicted in New York and whose assets are subject to US seizure.

Since 2013, the Mabna Institute carried out cyber intrusions into the computer systems of 144 US universities, the Treasury Department said, and 176 universities in 21 foreign countries.

Mabna Institute employees and contractors "engaged in the theft of valuable intellectual property and data from hundreds of US and third-country universities... for private financial gain," it said.

"For many of these intrusions, the defendants acted at the behest of the Iranian government and, specifically, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said.

The US Department of Labor, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, dozens of private firms and non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations Children's Fund were also allegedly targeted.

Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the Iranians conducted spearphishing attacks designed to steal passwords from email accounts in one of the "largest state-sponsored" hacking schemes ever uncovered.

- 8,000 accounts compromised -

The email accounts of more than 100,000 university professors worldwide were targeted, Berman said, and about 8,000 accounts were compromised.

He said 31 terabytes -- about 15 billion pages -- of academic data and intellectual property were stolen.

This included "research, and other academic data and documents, including, among other things, academic journals, theses, dissertations, and electronic books," the Justice Department said.

"The defendants targeted data across all fields of research and academic disciplines, including science and technology, engineering, social sciences, medical, and other professional fields," it said.

David Bowdich, deputy director of the FBI, said the defendants are in Iran and "apprehending these individuals presents a challenge."

"(But) the long arm of the law reaches worldwide," he said.

"You cannot hide behind a keyboard half way around the world and expect not to be held to account," Berman said.

One of the 10 Iranians subject to sanctions, Behzad Mesri, was already indicted in November 2017 in connection with the theft of scripts and plot summaries for HBO's "Game of Thrones," and for trying to extort $6 million in Bitcoin out of the network.

The Justice Department said that besides targeting university professors in the United States, the hackers also compromised accounts in Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Rafatnejad, Mohammadi and the seven other Mabna Institute employees or contractors were charged with identity theft, conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and other crimes.

Related Links
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

US military should step up cyber ops: general
Washington (AFP) March 20, 2018
US efforts to conduct offensive and defensive operations in cyberspace are falling short, a top general warned Tuesday amid ongoing revelations about Russian hacking. General John Hyten, who leads US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), told lawmakers the US has "not gone nearly far enough" in the cyber domain, also noting that the military still lacks clear rules of cyber engagement. "We have to go much further in treating cyberspace as an operational domain," Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Comm ... read more