Three Iranian nationals who, according to the US Department of State, worked for tech firms connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are the subject of a $10 million bounty for information that results in their capture.
According to foreign media, which cited US officials, the Iranian nationals have been accused of attempting to hack into the computer systems of organizations in the US, Europe, Iran, and Israel in order to extort large sums of money from them, including a domestic abuse shelter.
The accused, Mansour Ahmadi, Ahmad Khatibi, and Amir Hossein Nikaein, are Iranian nationals who own or work for privately held technology companies in their home country.
Sanctions were also reportedly put in place by the US Treasury Department against the three Iranians, as well as several other people and two organizations that they claimed participated in Tehran’s “malicious” cyber and ransom-ware operation.
Prosecutors in the US stated that it was unlikely that the individuals would be tried in the US while they were still at large in Iran. By exposing the organization, US officials expressed the hope that they might stop such attacks in the future.
Earlier last week, Albania cut diplomatic ties with Iran as a result of a major cyberattack that the Albanian government attributes to Iran.
The Iranian diplomats and staff at the Iranian embassy in Tirana, the capital of Albania were even given a 24-hour expulsion order to leave Albania.
Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania, told the media that Iranian hackers had tried to disrupt government work, public services, and the erasure and theft of official data.
