Nine Iranian citizens—working at the behest of the government of Iran—have been charged in a massive computer hacking campaign that compromised U.S. and foreign universities, private companies, and U.S. government entities, including the Department of Labor and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The hackers were affiliated with the Mabna Institute, an Iran-based company created in 2013 for the express purpose of illegally gaining access to non-Iranian scientific resources through computer intrusions. Members of the institute were contracted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—one of several entities within the Iranian government responsible for gathering intelligence—as well as other Iranian government clients.
During a more than four-year campaign, these state-sponsored hackers “compromised approximately 144 U.S.-based universities and 176 foreign universities in 21 countries,” said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich during a press conference today at the Department of Justice in Washington to announce the indictments. When the FBI learned of the attacks, he said, “we notified the victims so they could take action to minimize the impact. And then we took action to find and stop these hackers.”
Initially, the cyber criminals used an elaborate spearphishing campaign to target the e-mail accounts and computer systems of their victims, which in addition to the universities included nearly 50 domestic and foreign private-sector companies, the states of Hawaii and Indiana, and the United Nations.
According to the indictments unsealed today in a Manhattan federal court, the hackers stole more than 30 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property—roughly three times the amount of data contained in the print collection of the Library of Congress.
“Their primary goal was to obtain user names and passwords for the accounts of professors so they could gain unauthorized access and steal whatever kind of proprietary academic information they could get their hands on,” said a special agent who investigated the case from the FBI’s New York Division. “That information included access to library databases, white papers, journals, research, and electronic books. All that information and intellectual property was provided to the Iranian government,” he added.
