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RFL/RE – U.S. authorities have charged nine Iranians and an Iranian company in what they say was a hacking scheme that stole “massive amounts” of data from hundreds of universities, dozens of companies, and parts of the U.S. government on behalf of the Iranian government.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other law enforcement officials announced the charges on March 23.
The defendants hacked into government and other networks in an “attempt to steal as much as possible,” Rosenstein told a news conference.
“For many of these intrusions, the defendants acted at the behest of the Iranian government and, specifically, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),” he said in a statement.
The defendants “hacked the computer systems of approximately 320 universities in 22 countries,” including 144 U.S. universities, Rosenstein said. “The defendants stole research that cost the universities approximately $3.4 billion to procure and maintain.”
U.S. officials said the defendants were affiliated with the Mabna Institute, an Iranian company that they said has conducted hacking on behalf of the Iranian government for several years.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced it has imposed sanctions on all those indicted by the Justice Department as well as on one additional Iranian man.
The case is part of the U.S. government’s strategy of “naming and shaming” — or publicly identifying alleged foreign hackers and letting them and their governments know that U.S. authorities are onto them.
However, the defendants are unlikely to be prosecuted in the United States, which has no extradition with Iran and deeply tense relations with the government in Tehran.
With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP
CORRECTION: This article has been amended to indicate that U.S. authorities have charged nine Iranians, not 10 as originally reported.
