The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed new and updated charges against 17 individuals allegedly affiliated with an Iranian company, accused of conducting widespread hacking and data theft targeting U.S. universities, corporations, and government entities.
These individuals are reported to have operated under the umbrella of the Mabna Institute, which allegedly conducted hacking operations on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian governmental and academic institutions. The campaigns reportedly compromised hundreds of U.S. and international universities, dozens of American companies, and at least five U.S. state and federal government agencies.
This latest indictment builds upon a previous one from March 2018, which charged nine of the same individuals in relation to a hacking campaign that targeted the U.S. Department of Labor, the United Nations, and computer networks in Hawaii and Indiana. Representatives for the Iranian government at the United Nations and the Mabna Institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, stated that the charges reveal “the broader network allegedly behind a sweeping, state-sponsored campaign to steal research and intellectual property from American universities, businesses, and government institutions.”
In parallel, the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program announced a $10 million reward for information leading to the whereabouts of several individuals named in the unsealed charges. According to the DOJ, the Mabna Institute, from at least 2013 through 2017, targeted over 100,000 professor accounts globally, successfully breaching approximately 8,000 professor email accounts across 144 U.S. universities and 178 universities internationally.
