Iran Hacks into U.S. Aerospace and Satellite Technology Resources

The men accused for cybercrime are Pourkarim Arabi, Mohammad Reza Espargham, and Mohammad Bayati, all charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, obtaining information by unauthorized access and other related crimes. These men are currently facing maximum punishment of up to 20 years in prison. At one point out of the years the defendants have been doing this, they had a target list of over 1,800 online accounts that belonged to organizations that possessed information about aerospace or satellite technologies. Some of the countries targeted were Australia, Singapore, the United States, and the United Kingdom. “We will relentlessly pursue and expose those who seek to harm American companies and individuals wherever they reside in the world,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in response to the use of malware and theft of commercial data from the IRGC to steal identities and commit unlawful actions against the United States. 

These hackers were able to conduct social engineering attacks on individuals on the target list to gain information and pose as them online to send messages to people they knew containing malware. The FBI released details on the eight different sets of malware that was used in Iran to infiltrate an individual’s computer, some using links and some exploiting VPN vulnerabilities. Rana Intelligence Computing Company, which is a popular tech industry in Iran, were helping Iran’s intelligence and security to target 15 U.S. companies and gain information from over 30 other countries, by performing computer intrusion and malware attacks. This resulted in the United States Department of the Treasury imposing sanctions on Rana Intelligence Computing Company, and the threat group Advanced Persistent Threat 39 (APT39) who were behind the face of the company committing these attacks. There were 45 actors in APT39, and not only did they target other countries, but in a report says they also were also targeting and monitoring Iranian citizens who were former government employees, journalists, and part of other organizations. The FBI’s response of this cyber-attack is coming up with a new cyber strategy to impose more of a risk and consequences on adversaries, and making it harder to commit cyber-attacks using malicious activity. They also intend to work more with other agencies, foreign and domestic to mitigate these threats.