CyberNew CyberNew
Threat Intelligence & APT The Record 1 week ago

Iranian accused of hacking American universities extradited from Montenegro

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CyberNew Threat Research Desk
• Original Reporting: The Record
CyberNew Threat Intel Assessment
Assessed Severity: INFORMATIONAL
Impacted Surface
Enterprise Data & Identity Stores
Intelligence Sector
Threat Intelligence & APT

Analyst Takeaway

"Iranian accused of hacking American universities extradited from Montenegro An Iranian national accused by the U.S. of taking part in dozens of breaches involving the theft of academic data and intellectual property has been extradited from Montenegro. Amir Barati, a 40-year-old citizen of both Turkey and Iran, was arrested on June 25 by Montenegro’s Police Directorate after the FBI issued an..."

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Curated & Verified by CyberNew Threat Intelligence Desk Standard Defense Framework (NIST / MITRE ATT&CK)
DOJ
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Iranian accused of hacking American universities extradited from Montenegro

An Iranian national accused by the U.S. of taking part in dozens of breaches involving the theft of academic data and intellectual property has been extradited from Montenegro. 

Amir Barati, a 40-year-old citizen of both Turkey and Iran, was arrested on June 25 by Montenegro’s Police Directorate after the FBI issued an arrest warrant. 

In August, the Justice Department named Barati in a 14-count indictment charging 17 people in relation to an expansive campaign prosecutors believe was run through an Iranian company known as the Mabna Institute on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

A Montenegrin court issued a final decision to extradite Barati this week after he was detained in the coastal municipality Kotor during a vacation.  

Barati is accused of being a key figure in an operation that allegedly saw Iranian hackers breach email inboxes at universities and other research institutions worldwide, stealing at least 31 terabytes of information and intellectual property. 

The hackers are accused of stealing academic journals, theses, dissertations, and electronic books, targeting data across dozens of fields. U.S. officials claimed Barati’s group was responsible for $3.4 billion in damages.

Source Verification & Original Intelligence

This threat report was reviewed by CyberNew analysts and cross-referenced with primary security disclosures from The Record.

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