The US Department of Justice announced, on Tuesday, that it had brought charges against 17 Iranians against the backdrop of a massive electronic campaign that targeted hundreds of universities, companies, and government institutions inside and outside the United States, with the aim of stealing academic data, intellectual property, and private information.
The ministry said that the defendants are linked to the Iranian “Mabna Institute,” which Washington accuses of running hacking operations since 2013, some of which were carried out on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and government and university entities inside Iran.
According to the indictment, the network targeted 144 universities within the United States and 178 foreign universities, in addition to 42 American companies and 11 foreign companies, as well as 5 federal and local government agencies and at least two non-governmental organizations.
The Ministry of Justice confirmed that the defendants were able to steal more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property, which included research, periodicals, university theses, and e-books.
The hackers also targeted more than 100,000 accounts of academics around the world, and were able to penetrate about 8,000 email accounts of university professors.
The ministry said that the attacks affected various scientific, engineering, medical, and social fields, and that the stolen data was transferred to servers outside the United States that were under the control of network members.
Washington accused the network members of selling part of the stolen data through websites inside Iran, in addition to allowing the use of hacked university accounts to access electronic libraries.
The operations were not limited to universities, as the Ministry of Justice said that the defendants hacked the accounts of employees in government institutions and private companies, including the US Department of Labor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and entities in the states of Hawaii and Indiana.
The operations also affected international bodies, including the United Nations and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The indictment indicated that some of the defendants also participated in hacking the HBO network and stealing data from it, before attempting to blackmail it in exchange for about $6 million in Bitcoin.
In conjunction with the unveiling of the new indictment, the US State Department announced an offer of a reward of up to $10 million for information that would help determine the locations of 5 of the defendants.
The Ministry of Justice explained that 9 of the 17 defendants had previously been charged in a case announced in 2018, while 8 new defendants were added to the current indictment.
The charges against them include conspiracy to hack computer systems, wire fraud, identity theft, and unauthorized access to computer systems for financial gain.
The Ministry of Justice stressed that the accusations contained in the prosecution list do not mean proof of guilt, and that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty before the judiciary.
