9 Iranians charged in hacking of research from U.S. universities

Nine Iranian nationals connected to a government-linked institute that allegedly specialized in hacking were charged Friday in Manhattan federal court with a wide-ranging cyber-conspiracy that pilfered valuable academic research from 144 U.S. universities.

An indictment announced in Washington, D.C., said Tehran’s Mabna Institute stole data worth $3.4 billion from the U.S. schools, including two in New York, from 2013 to 2017, and also hacked 176 foreign universities, 47 private companies, and several state and federal government entities.

Officials said the institute stole more than 30 terabytes of intellectual property, and conducted many of its intrusions on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a government intelligence-gathering entity, and other Iranian government clients.

None of the defendants were in custody, but they were all put on U.S. sanctions lists along with the Mabna Institute itself. Interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said it was one of the largest state-sponsored hacking campaigns ever prosecuted in the United States.

“We have unmasked criminals who normally hide behind the ones and zeros of computer code,” Berman said. “These defendants are now fugitives from American justice, no longer free to travel outside Iran without risk of arrest. The only way they will see the outside world is through their computer screens, but stripped of their greatest asset — anonymity.”