FlagThis — Daily Cybersecurity Intelligence Briefing

The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted 17 members of the Iran-based Mabna Institute, operating on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for a systemic cyber theft campaign. The actors targeted U.S. government agencies and academic institutions via the unauthorized compromise of high-level email accounts and university research databases. The campaign utilized dedicated Command and Control (C2) infrastructure to maintain long-term persistence and exfiltrate sensitive intellectual property (IP) and proprietary research data. The primary objective was the acquisition of strategic data to advance Iranian national interests through targeted espionage.