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US Charges Iranians For Global Cyber Attacks on Behalf of Tehran (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the breaking-news dept.

The United States on Friday charged nine Iranians and an Iranian company with attempting to hack into hundreds of U.S. and international universities, dozens of companies and parts of the U.S. government on behalf of the Tehran government. From a report: The cyber attack pilfered more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property from 144 U.S. universities and 176 universities in 21 foreign countries, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. The U.S. Treasury Department said on its website that it was placing sanctions on those accused and the Mabna Institute, a company described by U.S. prosecutors as designed to help Iranian research organizations steal information.

19 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Iran didn't use chemical weapons on England by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Iran has never used nerve agent to assassinate someone and contaminate a British town.

    They also haven't hacked our election systems, unlike Russia.

    More importantly, they never bribed Moscow Donald to betray his own country.

    1. Re: Iran didn't use chemical weapons on England by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Right? This is basic intel gathering. Every nation on Earth with an economy has teams doing this.

    2. Re:Iran didn't use chemical weapons on England by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      They also haven't hacked our election systems, unlike Russia.

      Neither has Russia. Plot hole #3,459 of Russiagate is the fact that both parties in the United States have been virulently anti-Russian for over a century. It's like accusing Malcolm X of interfering in an election between Strom Thurmond and George Wallace - both people hated his guts so why would he bother??

  2. How? by Neuroelectronic · · Score: 1

    How were they able to hack so many universities? I wonder if this is fallout from the Snowden leaks revealing all the backdoors in legacy systems.

    1. Re: How? by reanjr · · Score: 1

      ? University networks are insecure af in my experience. Too much wild west, lots of students involved in setting up networks, student support, etc.

  3. Re: How about the JEWS who caused the 2009 Financi by reanjr · · Score: 1

    Sure. Like when the USA was spying on the German Chancellor.

  4. 31 terabytes of what by tomxor · · Score: 1

    The cyber attack pilfered more than 31 terabytes of academic data.

    I hate it when media quantifies dammage in terms of bytes... bytes of what? I can fit 31TiB in my desk draw, at little cost. The significance of the size entirely depends on what it is... is it 31 TiB of academic security footage? or decades worth of research? reducing qualatative dammage information to these kinds of numbers looses all relevance, much like that kid who looked over his techers shoulder to see his password who was charged with "computer missuse act".

  5. How are these laws worded? by FeelGood314 · · Score: 1

    The USA, NSA and Five Eyes regularly intercepts traffic, hacks communication, puts back doors in commercial devices and even modifies other countries hardware. I find it hard to charge intelligence operatives of other countries for doing something we do ourselves. Your morals have to be pretty messed up to make one a crime and encourage the other.

  6. Doing Them a Favour? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    >US Charges Iranians For Global Cyber Attacks on Behalf of Tehran

    This makes it sound like the US is doing Tehran a favour by doing some of their legal work for them.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  7. The drumbeat begins by sasparillascott · · Score: 1

    Expect the Trump admin to kill off the Iranian deal (even the Prez can't say why its actually bad) - I think that comes up within a month. Would not be surprised if this the beginning of the drumbeat for regime change by this administration.

  8. Only idiots think they hacked the US elections! by TimSSG · · Score: 1
    The Russians are accused of hacking the DNC not the US elections! Only idiots think they hacked the US elections! Tim S.

    Iran has never used nerve agent to assassinate someone and contaminate a British town.

    They also haven't hacked our election systems, unlike Russia.

    More importantly, they never bribed Moscow Donald to betray his own country.

    1. Re:Only idiots think they hacked the US elections! by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      AC the data walked out. It was a person who understood internal US domestic politics and who had access to data the media had to see.
      "A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack" (Aug 9, 2017)
      https://www.thenation.com/arti...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:Only idiots think they hacked the US elections! by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Russia hacked the DNC, and our election systems. citation provided

      Citation is bogus.

      1) Get past the hyperbole and the ergmagerd hacking is actually....port scanning. Something that happens to every IP address on the planet.

      2) Even if the FSB was trying to hack into election systems, they wouldn't be so stupid as to do it from Russian IP addresses. Which is plot hole #2,462 of Russiagate: Putin was so diabolically strategic and prescient as to know years in advance that a sexist, racist failed businessman could be POTUS, and yet be so incompetent as to collude with someone as incompetent as Trump, or do all his hacking from Russian universities and not have an agent do it from a laptop on another continent.

  9. Sometimes the headline.... by djbckr · · Score: 1

    Sometimes the headline makes me have to do a triple reading. I read that and thought to myself, "How much are we charging for these cyber attacks?" As in a monetary value. Then I figured out "charged with crimes". The English language sucks....

  10. Well, Bolton's getting an early start... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

    Nothing like the early echo of wardrums in the morning.

    --
    That is all.
  11. Take this as an example Brazil by aod7br7932 · · Score: 1

    Brazilian prosecutors, follow this example and charge the US staff involved in the cyber attacks against Petrobras and Brazilian government on 2014/2015

  12. Total cyber bullshit .. by najajomo · · Score: 1

    A fascist regime bent on fermenting discord anywhere on the planet, the united States of America. I figure what with the Russians not responding to the neocon bait, they have to pick a fight elsewhere.

  13. cough*STUXNET*cough by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Even if this isn't just more propaganda from the usual pathological liars, the U.S. is hardly in a position to complain here after deliberately sabotaging Iran's civilian centrifuges.

    If Iran had done that to the United States, we would have invaded their asses a long time ago.

  14. Actually it was about academic papers by fygment · · Score: 1

    Yeah, Iranian universities, etc. cannot access most of the high end academic journals eg. publications of the IEEE. There's an embargo or some such. So some enterprising types likely figured it would be easy to just download a bunch of stuff à la Aaron Swartz or Alexandra Elbakyan and liberate it in to Iran (possibly for profit). Kind of a non-event in that light isn't it? They got caught and there's a big anti-piracy/anti-Iran lobby so this makes news ... kinda.

    --
    "Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.