Iran slams US for imposing sanctions on nine citizens over hacking scheme
The suspects were accused of working on behalf of Iran’s terrorist-linked Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A senior Iranian official on Saturday said his country condemns the United States’ sanctions against nine of its citizens and an Iranian company over their suspected connection to a state-sponsored hacking plot.
Federal US agencies issued criminal charges as well as sanctions on Friday against nine Iranians who were accused of hacking sensitive data from hundreds of universities, private companies, and American government entities.
The suspects were accused of working on behalf of Iran’s terrorist-linked Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Bahram Ghassemi labeled the allegations “false,” adding that Washington could not “prevent the scientific development of the Iranian people.”
“Iran condemns the United States’ provocative, illegal, and unjustified actions, which are a major new sign of the hostility and animosity of US leaders toward the Iranian people,” he said in an online statement.
Prosecutors said the Iranians had hacked the computer systems of about 320 universities in the US and abroad “to steal expensive science and engineering research that was then used by the Iranian government or sold for profit,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Over 100,000 professors worldwide were targeted with spear-phishing emails, which made the hacking scheme one of the largest state-sponsored cybercrime cases ever charged by the US Justice Department, the report added.
According to the Justice Department, the hackers stole “about 31 terabytes of academic research and intellectual property” that was then sent to servers outside the US for profit, costing the American universities approximately $3.4 billion to obtain and access.
The US Treasury Department, meanwhile, said the Iranian Mabna Institute, whose two founders are among the nine hackers, carried out cyber intrusions into the computer systems of 144 American universities and 176 universities in 21 foreign countries.
“For many of these intrusions, the defendants acted at the behest of the Iranian government and, specifically, the IRGC,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said.
US President Donald Trump has taken a hard stance toward Iran since taking office in January 2017. He has been particularly vocal in his objections to the nuclear deal signed with Iran and world powers, repeatedly threatening to scrap the agreement.