Justice Department accuses Iranians of long-term hacking

WASHINGTON — An Iranian consulting firm worked for years to steal secrets from universities and companies in the U.S. and around the globe, even hacking into the U.S. Department of Labor and the United Nations, according to an indictment unveiled Friday.

The Mabna Institute, based in Tehran, worked for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other clients in the Iranian government to steal academic research, proprietary secrets and government data, the indictment claims. The hacking went on since at least 2013, the Justice Department said.

The company is also accused of breaching the computers of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the states of Hawaii and Indiana.

A grand jury meeting in the southern district of New York charged nine people, all of them living in Iran. The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against the company and the employees.

The hackers used stolen account credentials to access university professors’ accounts and allegedly stole journals, dissertations and electronic books in science and technology, engineering, medical and other fields. The leaders of the company sold the material through two affiliated websites, according to the indictment. One firm sold a professor’s log-in information that allowed access to online library systems.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the hackers penetrated 320 universities around the world, including 144 in the U.S. He said universities are “prime targets” for cybercriminals.

By tricking professors into clicking on false links, the hackers got into 8,000 accounts, said Geoffrey Berman, interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, saying the hackers stole “innovations and intellectual property of some of our country’s greatest minds.”