US charges 17 Iranians over cyber espionage campaign

The US Justice Department has unsealed a superseding indictment charging 17 members of the Mabna Institute, an Iran-based hacking group, with a campaign that stole 31TB of data from universities, companies, and government agencies. The original indictment was filed in 2018, and eight new names have been added.

The group compromised systems at 144 US universities and 178 foreign ones, plus at least 42 US private companies, 11 foreign companies, five federal and state government agencies, and two NGOs. They stole academic data, intellectual property, and email inboxes, and sold the material through websites like Megapaper.ir and Gigapaper.ir.

One newly charged defendant, Behzad Mesri, was previously charged with hacking HBO. The State Department is offering up to $10 million for information leading to the location of five of the newly charged defendants.