The U.S. Treasury Division’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management (OFAC) introduced sanctions towards six officers related to the Iranian intelligence company for attacking vital infrastructure entities within the U.S. and different international locations.
The officers embrace Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian, Hamid Homayunfal, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin Saberian, who’re a part of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Digital Command (IRGC-CEC).
Reza Lashgarian can also be the pinnacle of the IRGC-CEC and a commander within the IRGC-Qods Power. He’s alleged to have been concerned in varied IRGC cyber and intelligence operations.
The Treasury Division mentioned it is holding these people accountable for finishing up “cyber operations through which they hacked and posted photographs on the screens of programmable logic controllers manufactured by Unitronics, an Israeli firm.”
In late November 2023, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA) revealed that the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania was focused by Iranian menace actors by exploiting Unitronics PLCs.
The assault was attributed to an Iranian hacktivist persona dubbed Cyber Av3ngers, which got here to the forefront within the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas battle, staging damaging assaults towards entities in Israel and the U.S.
The group, which has been lively since 2020, can also be mentioned to be behind a number of different cyber assaults, together with one focusing on Boston Youngsters’s Hospital in 2021 and others in Europe and Israel.
“Industrial management units, equivalent to programmable logic controllers, utilized in water and different vital infrastructure programs, are delicate targets,” the Treasury Division famous.
“Though this specific operation didn’t disrupt any vital providers, unauthorized entry to vital infrastructure programs can allow actions that hurt the general public and trigger devastating humanitarian penalties.”
The event comes as one other pro-Iranian “psychological operation group” referred to as Homeland Justice mentioned it attacked Albania’s Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) and claimed to have stolen terabytes of knowledge.
Homeland Justice has a observe report of focusing on Albania since mid-July 2022, with the menace actor most not too long ago noticed delivering a wiper malware codenamed No-Justice.
