US prosecutors say the years-long operation targeted universities, companies and government agencies in one of the largest alleged Iranian cyber theft campaigns.
US prosecutors have charged 17 Iranian nationals over an alleged years-long cyber campaign that targeted hundreds of organisations in the United States and other countries.
The US Department of Justice just unsealed charges against 17 people tied to a group in Iran called the Mabna Institute. The government says this crew spent years breaking into 144 American universities, dozens of private companies, and a few federal agencies.
They were not just looking around. They were packing up hard drives.
According to the feds, the hackers walked away with 31 terabytes of academic data. The DOJ put a price tag on that stolen research: roughly $3.4 billion.
The indictment claims they did this heavy lifting for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They went straight after the people who hold the keys to new ideas, compromising 8,000 professor email accounts in the US alone.
James C Barnacle Jr, an FBI assistant director, called the operation “a serious threat to our national security.”
“Backed by the IRGC, this operation reflects a broader, organised effort to target US institutions and global partners,” Barnacle said.
US Attorney Jamie McDonald pointed out the quiet reality of modern theft. She noted that these cyber hits have simply “become a central instrument of national power.”
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The Mabna Institute was apparently built back in 2013 for the exact purpose of grabbing foreign science.
Now, the US is throwing serious money at the problem. There is a $10 million reward on the table for anyone who can point the government toward five of the main hackers.
The charges are out. The bounty is posted. But catching someone sitting behind a keyboard in Tehran is a very different game than finding a local bank robber. For the professors who lost years of work to a fake login screen, the damage is already done.
