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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.

The Record · 8d agoPolicy & legal 2 sources

Risky Bulletin: Ukraine's top prosecutor resigns amid scam call center scandal

Ukraine's top prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko resigned after NABU arrested a deputy for taking bribes protecting scam call centers running fake investment platforms.

Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau NABU arrested Serhiy Kropyva, Deputy Head of International Cooperation at the Prosecutor General's Office, alleging officials took monthly protection fees from a network of 100-500 scam call centers luring victims into fake investment platforms, with bribes reportedly growing from $700,000 to $3.5 million per month. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko resigned on Monday, calling it a political decision, while Kropyva was fired with bail set at 120 million hryvnias ($2.7 million) and over 100 call centers shut down in the past month. The newsletter also briefly covers a cyberattack crippling more than 80 Luxembourg medical practices via payment vendor BMS Engineering, ShinyHunters' claimed theft of 200,000 Florida DMV driver records, a cyberattack on the American Meteor Society, and school closures in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Risky Business News · 7d agoPhishing & fraud