The United States is intensifying its search for Amir Yariab, a senior official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command.
The Department of State’s Rewards for Justice programme announced on Thursday an offer of up to $10 million for information leading to Yariab’s location.
Yariab leads the IRGC-CEC’s Cyber Operations Command and directs multiple components of the CEC, including Shahid Hemmat and Shahid Shushtari.
Others are CyberAv3ngers, Dadeh Afzar Arman, Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik, Net Peygard Samavat, Aria Sepehr Ayandehsazan, and Ayandeh Sazan Sepehr Arya.
Washington says the affiliate organisations have conducted cyber and cyber-enabled information operations targeting critical infrastructure sectors.
The targets include defence, news, shipping, hotels, airlines, energy, and financial and telecommunications systems in Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S.
In August, the U.S. Department of Justice charged 17 members of the Iran-based Mabna Institute over a coordinated campaign of cyber intrusions into computer systems that had been ongoing since 2013.
The meddling affected 144 U.S.-based universities, 178 foreign universities, at least 42 U.S.-based companies, 11 foreign companies, five U.S. federal and state agencies, and at least two NGOs.
The institute, according to the DoJ, stole more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property from the universities, as well as the email accounts of employees at the firms, government agencies, and NGOs.
The indictment says the 17 defendants conducted many of the intrusions on behalf of the IRGC and other Iranian entities. Nine of them were charged in a seven-count indictment announced in March 2018.
The case is assigned to Jesse M. Furman, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The defendants face between two and 20 years in prison.