US expands Iran-linked hacking case to 17 defendants over HBO’s $6 million Bitcoin ransom plot
US prosecutors have expanded an eight-year-old hacking case tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including eight defendants and linking six of them to the 2017 HBO breach that included a $6 million Bitcoin extortion try.
A 14-count second superseding indictment unsealed Aug. 18 prices 17 individuals related to Iran-based Mabna Institute, up from 9 defendants named when the Justice Department first introduced the case in 2018.
Prosecutors allege Mabna operated as a non-public firm that carried out cyber intrusions on behalf of the IRGC and other Iranian government, college and private-sector shoppers.
Six of the newly added defendants, together with Behzad Mesri, Saeid Houshyar, Manouchehr Hashemloo, Keyvan Fayaz, Saber Shahbazi Ballojeh and Arman Kahzadian, are accused of taking part within the 2017 HBO intrusion.
That breach led to an tried Bitcoin extortion after hackers allegedly stole unreleased tv episodes, scripts, and different proprietary materials.
Prosecutors mentioned the demand started at $5.5 million and rose to roughly $6 million earlier than stolen HBO content material was leaked on-line.
The Justice Department has not alleged that HBO paid the ransom.
Mesri had beforehand been charged individually over the HBO assault in 2017. The new indictment brings that episode into the broader Mabna prosecution quite than alleging a recent breach.
Wider marketing campaign focused universities and authorities victims
Meanwhile, the Mabna operation prolonged nicely past HBO.
Prosecutors allege the group focused greater than 100,000 professor accounts and efficiently compromised about 8,000, stealing no less than 31.5 terabytes of educational knowledge and mental property by way of exercise that continued till no less than December 2017.
The authorities additionally alleges Galekuhi, Fayaz and Ballojeh participated in assaults towards private-sector and authorities organizations that brought about greater than $20 million in investigation and remediation prices.
Alongside the indictment, the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program supplied rewards of up to $10 million for data main to the situation of Mesri, Galekuhi, Kahzadian, Fayaz and Ballojeh.
The superseding indictment marks the newest effort by US authorities to widen the case towards an alleged Iranian cyber network first charged almost a decade in the past, whereas tying considered one of its most distinguished alleged operations — the HBO hack — immediately into the broader prosecution.
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