The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of International Property Manage (OFAC) declared sanctions towards 6 officials affiliated with the Iranian intelligence company for attacking critical infrastructure entities in the U.S. and other countries.
The officers consist of Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian, Hamid Homayunfal, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin Saberian, who are section of the Iranian Islamic Groundbreaking Guard Corps Cyber-Digital Command (IRGC-CEC).
Reza Lashgarian is also the head of the IRGC-CEC and a commander in the IRGC-Qods Pressure. He is alleged to have been concerned in numerous IRGC cyber and intelligence functions.
The Treasury Office said it is really keeping these men and women liable for carrying out “cyber operations in which they hacked and posted pictures on the screens of programmable logic controllers produced by Unitronics, an Israeli company.”
In late November 2023, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Company (CISA) disclosed that the Municipal H2o Authority of Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania was qualified by Iranian threat actors by exploiting Unitronics PLCs.
The attack was attributed to an Iranian hacktivist persona dubbed Cyber Av3ngers, which came to the forefront in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas conflict, staging harmful assaults from entities in Israel and the U.S.
The team, which has been energetic considering that 2020, is also explained to be at the rear of many other cyber assaults, such as 1 targeting Boston Children’s Healthcare facility in 2021 and other folks in Europe and Israel.
“Industrial regulate units, these kinds of as programmable logic controllers, utilised in h2o and other critical infrastructure methods, are delicate targets,” the Treasury Office observed.
“Although this certain procedure did not disrupt any critical products and services, unauthorized obtain to critical infrastructure methods can help actions that damage the general public and bring about devastating humanitarian effects.”
The enhancement will come as an additional pro-Iranian “psychological operation group” recognised as Homeland Justice said it attacked Albania’s Institute of Data (INSTAT) and claimed to have stolen terabytes of knowledge.
Homeland Justice has a observe file of concentrating on Albania considering that mid-July 2022, with the menace actor most not too long ago observed offering a wiper malware codenamed No-Justice.
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Some parts of this article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com