US Boycotts 6 Iranian Officials for Infrastructure Breaches

Nowadays, the US Boycotts 6 Iranian officials connected to the Iranian intelligence service who were sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department for their attacks on vital infrastructure targets in the United States and other nations.

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) is comprised of the following officials: Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian, Hamid Homayunfal, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin Saberian.

Additionally, Reza Lashgarian is a commander in the IRGC-Quds Force and the chairman of the IRGC-CEC. It is said that he participated in multiple intelligence and cyber operations carried out by the IRGC.

These people are allegedly being held accountable by the Treasury Department for engaging in "cyber operations in which they hacked and posted images on the screens of programmable logic controllers manufactured by Unitronics, an Israeli company."

When Iranian threat actors targeted the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania by taking advantage of Unitronics PLCs, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) made the revelation in late November 2023.

Moreover, an Iranian hacktivist group known as Cyber Av3ngers was blamed for the attack. This group gained notoriety after the Israel-Hamas conflict by carrying out damaging strikes against targets in Israel and the United States.

This criminal organization has been operating since 2020. They are also suspected of being responsible for several other cyberattacks, such as the 2021 attack against Boston Children's Hospital and other incidents in Europe and Israel.

"Industrial control devices, such as programmable logic controllers, used in water and other critical infrastructure systems, are sensitive targets," warned the Treasury Department.

"Although this particular operation did not interfere with any vital services, unauthorized access to vital infrastructure can enable actions that are harmful to the public and cause catastrophic humanitarian consequences."

This happened simultaneously with the announcement that Homeland Justice, a pro-Iranian "psychological operation group," had targeted Albania's Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) and was said to have taken terabytes of data.

Since mid-July 2022, Homeland Justice has been targeting Albania; the threat actor was most recently seen distributing wiper malware under the alias No-Justice.

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