Rod Rosenstein Image by Getty Images

By Josh Nathan-Kazis March 23, 2018

Federal prosecutors charged nine Iranians Monday with conducting cyber theft campaign targeting United States universities on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military.

At a press conference, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that the five men were charged with participating in a campaign that resulted in the theft of 30 terabytes of data, including intellectual property from universities and emails from corporate and government accounts.

“As alleged, this massive and brazen cyber-assault on the computer systems of hundreds of universities in 22 countries, including the United States, and dozens of private sector companies and governmental organizations was conducted on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard,” Said Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “The hackers targeted innovations and intellectual property from our country’s greatest minds.”

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The nine indicted Iranians are not in custody. They allegedly used a range of techniques to steal data. In addition to delivering the data to the IRGC, they also allegedly sold it to private clients in Iran.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

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