Rosenstein announces indictment of Iranians for "conspiring" to hack U.S. entities
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday announced the indictment of nine Iranians for "conspiring" to hack computers and defraud U.S. universities, business and agencies by taking proprietary information and research.
Rosenstein and the indictment claim the individuals worked on behalf of the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), through association with the Mabna Institute. The indictment alleges that the defendants targeted 100,000 professors' email accounts worldwide, successfully accessing roughly 8,000 of those and stealing about 31 terabytes of information. Rosenstein claimed the defendants hacked about 320 universities, 144 of which are American. Specifically, the charges include computer fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and identity theft. The DOJ believes this activity has gone on for four or five years.
"The indictment alleges that the defendants worked on behalf of the Iranian government, specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," Rosenstein said in his prepared remarks. "They hacked the computer systems of approximately 320 universities in 22 countries. 144 of the victims are American universities. The defendants stole research that cost the universities approximately $3.4 billion to procure and maintain. The stolen information was used by the Revolutionary Guard or sold for profit in Iran."
Rosenstein called the defendants "fugitives from justice," and said they face the possibility of being extradited. The DOJ believes all nine defendants, all citizens of Iran, are currently in their home country.
"When hackers gain unlawful access to computers, it can take them only a few minutes to steal discoveries that were produced by many years of work in many millions of dollars of investment," Rosenstein said in his prepared remarks. "That type of activity does not just cause economic harm. It also threatens America's national security. Identifying and prosecuting computer hackers is a top priority of the Department of Justice."
The indictment names the defendants as Gholamreza Rafatnejad, 38; Ehsan Mohammadi, 37; Abdollah Karima, aka Vahid Karima, 39; Mostafa Sadeghi, 28; Seyed Ali Mirkarimi, 34; Mohammed Reza Sabahi, 26; Roozbeh Sabahi, 24; Abuzar Gohari Moqadam, 37; and Sajjad Tahmasebi, 30.
"These defendants are now fugitives from American justice, no longer free to travel outside Iran without risk of arrest," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement. "The only way they will see the outside world is through their computer screens, but stripped of their greatest asset – anonymity."
The indictment of the Iranians comes just over a week after the Treasury Department announced new sanctions against Russian entities and individuals over cyber attacks targeting the U.S. elections and critical infrastructure.