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U.S. Offers $10 Million Reward for Iranian IRGC Cyber Chief Linked to Critical Infrastructure Attacks
The U.S. State Department offered up to $10 million for information on Amir Yaryab, an IRGC cyber chief linked to critical infrastructure attacks.
The U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program offers up to $10 million for information identifying or locating Amir Yaryab, who allegedly oversees the Cyber Operations Command of Iran's IRGC Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC). Officials tie him to units called Shahid Hemmat and Shahid Shushtari conducting cyber and information campaigns against defense, telecommunications, energy, and finance sectors across the US, Europe, and the Middle East, and to groups including CyberAv3ngers and Dadeh Afzar Arman. CyberAv3ngers compromised at least 75 Unitronics Vision Series PLCs, including 34 in US water and wastewater facilities, between November 2023 and January 2024.
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US offers $10 million for info on Iranian leaders behind CyberAv3ngers water utility attacks
The US offered $10 million for information on six IRGC-CEC officials behind CyberAv3ngers' 2023 hacks of Unitronics PLCs at US water utilities.
The State Department named six Iranian security officials, including IRGC Cyber-Electronic Command head Hamid Reza Lashgarian, and offered up to $10 million for information on their whereabouts. CyberAv3ngers publicly claimed compromises of Israel-made Unitronics Vision PLCs in October 2023, forcing the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, to take systems offline and switch to manual operations. The US had sanctioned the six men in February for targeting critical infrastructure, and CISA notified water operators using Unitronics devices while urging default-password changes. A watchdog also criticized the EPA for lacking a comprehensive water-sector cyber risk strategy.
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Florida water agency latest to confirm cyber incident as feds warn of nation
A ransomware gang hit Florida's St. Johns River Water Management District as CISA warned of IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers attacks on exposed Unitronics water-sector PLCs.
The St. Johns River Water Management District, which oversees Florida drinking-water supply planning, confirmed suspicious activity in its IT environment and said containment measures were implemented; a ransomware gang claimed the attack and shared samples of stolen data. Separately, CISA, FBI, NSA, EPA and Israel's INCD warned that IRGC-affiliated CyberAv3ngers are actively compromising Israeli-made Unitronics Vision Series PLCs in the water sector using default credentials since at least November 22. The group, motivated by opposition to Israel-linked products, defaces controller interfaces and could cause deeper cyber-physical effects. Shadowserver found at least 539 Unitronics PLC instances still exposed online, and CNN reported fewer than 10 US water facilities faced recent attacks.
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ThreatsDay: Gogs 10.0 RCE, n8n Workflow-to-RCE, $10M Reward, GLM
Hacker News ThreatsDay roundup: Defender BTR.sys driver abuse, DoJ charges 17 Mabna Institute members over IRGC-linked intrusions, Grandoreiro sideloading, OpenAI monitoring.
Check Point researchers showed Microsoft's signed Defender Boot-Time Removal driver (BTR.sys) can be repurposed as a universal kernel operation engine to bypass endpoint security without BYOVD. The DoJ charged 17 members of Iran's Mabna Institute, which on behalf of the IRGC stole over 31 TB of academic data from 144 US universities and compromised roughly 8,000 of 100,000 targeted professor accounts; the State Department offered a $10 million reward for five defendants. Separately, Acronis tracked a Grandoreiro campaign abusing DLL sideloading in the Duplicate Files Finder app across Latin America and Spain, while ErrTraffic ClickFix campaigns deliver Cruciferra (BYOVD) and Remus Stealer. OpenAI also previewed Private Safety Processing, a privacy-centric approach to monitoring model misuse without retaining customer content.
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US offers $10 million for info on Iranian allegedly behind cyberattacks on critical infrastructure
State Department offers $10M reward for IRGC Cyber-Electronic Command chief Amir Yaryab over critical infrastructure cyberattacks across US, Europe, and Middle East.
The U.S. State Department posted a $10 million reward for information on senior Iranian official Amir Yaryab, who allegedly leads the IRGC's Cyber-Electronic Command (CEC) and directs hacking groups including CyberAv3ngers, Dadeh Afzar Arman (DAA), and Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik (MASN). These groups used malware to target defense, news, shipping, travel, energy, financial, and telecommunications sectors in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. The reward follows accusations of renewed Iranian attacks on water utilities, with over 100 entities breached across at least 12 US states since late July, and comes amid broader US-Iran tensions.
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US charges Iranians for sprawling hacking campaign on government agencies, universities
DOJ indicts 17 Iranians tied to Mabna Institute IRGC hacking-for-hire campaign that stole 31TB from universities, agencies, and UN organizations.
The U.S. Justice Department unsealed a 14-count superseding indictment charging 17 people linked to the Mabna Institute, allegedly operating on behalf of the IRGC, in a campaign running since around 2013. The group breached 144 US universities, 42 US companies, 178 foreign universities, 11 foreign companies, and agencies including the Department of Labor, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Hawaii and Indiana state governments, plus UN organizations such as UNICEF, stealing at least 31 terabytes of academic and proprietary data and about 8,000 professor email accounts. The State Department offered a $10 million reward for five individuals including Behzad Mesri, previously indicted for the $6 million HBO extortion; universities spent roughly $20 million on investigation and remediation.
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Nimbus Manticore Expands Toolset With TWOSTROKE
Group-IB found new infrastructure and TWOSTROKE-like malware used by IRGC-linked Nimbus Manticore, indicating expanded Middle East and Europe targeting.
Group-IB reported new Tortoiseshell infrastructure spanning Europe and the Middle East and two previously undocumented tools from IRGC-linked Nimbus Manticore (UNC1549): a reverse SSH tunneling utility connecting to 172.86.98.113 on port 443, and a C++ backdoor masquerading as wtsapi32.dll with three hard-coded C2 servers. The backdoor overlaps with TWOSTROKE and supports file transfer, execution, host information gathering, and persistence. Findings build on Kaspersky's report of the NightLedger backdoor and WebSocket tunnelers BridgeHead and ArcBridge, and suggest expanded targeting beyond the Middle East into Europe.
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