N環球 
Iranian accused in $3.4B hacking scheme extradited from Montenegro to U.S.
Montenegro extradited Amir Barati, a dual Iranian-Turkish national, to face charges in New York over a years-long hacking campaign blamed on Iran's IRGC.
Why it matters
Iranian state-linked hackers almost never face a U.S. courtroom. The extradition of Amir Barati from Montenegro — a rare win for U.S. law enforcement — comes as Washington is trying to blunt Tehran's cyber capabilities during the ongoing U.S.-Iran war.
Full report
Montenegrin police said Thursday they had extradited Amir Barati, a 40-year-old dual Iranian-Turkish citizen, to the United States. Barati was arrested in the coastal town of Kotor in June at the request of the FBI and faces charges including conspiracy to commit computer fraud, hacking and identity theft in the U.S. Southern District of New York.
In August, the Justice Department unsealed a 14-count superseding indictment naming Barati and 16 other Iranian nationals over a years-long campaign prosecutors say was run through the Iran-based Mabna Institute on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The alleged operation began in 2013, breaching about 8,000 email accounts of university professors and stealing 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property.
Prosecutors say the campaign hit 144 universities and 42 private companies in the U.S., plus 178 foreign universities and at least 11 foreign companies, as well as five U.S. government agencies and the United Nations. The stolen data cost universities an estimated $3.4 billion to procure and access, and the U.S. is offering rewards of up to $10 million for information on five of the hackers.
💬 Comments
No comments yet. Be the first!