9 Iranians are charged with intellectual property theft
WASHINGTON — Nine Iranians stole secrets from U.S. government agencies, universities and companies in a yearslong cyberattack, federal law enforcement officials said Friday, calling out Tehran amid fears that the Trump administration will dismantle the Iran nuclear deal.
The suspects worked as managers, contractors, associates and hackers for hire at the Mabna Institute, based in Iran, a contractor for the Iranian government working on behalf of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which benefited from the sensitive information obtained in the hacking, the officials said.
The suspects live in Iran and will not be extradited; the United States and Iran have no diplomatic relations. Though they are unlikely to ever be arrested, the Justice Department has used indictments against foreign citizens to signal to outside powers that they have crossed a line, including the indictments against 13 Russians last month accusing them of interfering in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Because of the indictment, the Iranians will not be able to travel abroad without risk of arrest, and the Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on them as well as on the Mabna Institute.
“Hostile individuals, organizations and nationstates have taken note of our success,” Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, said at a news conference Friday. “They increasingly attempt to profit from America’s ingenuity by infiltrating our computer systems, stealing our intellectual property and evading our controls on technology exports.”
The hacking case comes at a tenuous time for the fragile relationship between the United States and Iran. The Trump administration is threatening to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, the accord reached in 2015 between Iran and six world powers that limited nuclear programs in exchange for sanctions relief.
President Donald Trump has said that he wants to impose harsh sanctions on Iran, a move that could compel Iran to leave the agreement.
Security experts worry that if Trump follows through on threats to dismantle the agreement U.S. companies will be targeted in more cyberattacks from Iran.