Thread by @LuluLemew

9 Iranians working for IRANIAN REV GUARD indicted for hacking 320 Universities

Stealing research
7 fed crimes
Computer/wire fraud
Conspiracy
IDtheft

#DOJpresser

Islamic* Revolutionary guard

One of largest state hacking campaigns prosecuted by doj

Universities
8000+ accounts
Data, research from science, med, soc sci, tech, engineering
31.5 Tb of data

36 private sec co' s
Law
Tech
Consulting
Health
Biotech
Financial
Entire email boxes
Secretly fwd emsils

Us gov agencies
Us dept labor
Fed energy (infrastructure)
& more

36 US co's

The indictment alleges the Mabna Institute targeted more than 100,000 professors worldwide and succeeded in compromising 8,000 of them, spread across 144 US-based universities and 176 foreign universities. cnn.com/2018/03/23/pol…

To break into the accounts, the sophisticated campaign started by studying each target in a reconnaissance phase, using that info to send specialized emails to the targets that appeared to come from other university professors expressing interest in a recently published work

The hackers also broke into the accounts of US govt and non-governmental entities, including the Dept of Labor, the Fed Energy Regulatory Commission, the states of Hawaii and Indiana, Indiana's Dept of Ed, the United Nations, and the United Nations Children's Fund.

Victims included employees of 36 US-based companies and 11 companies outside the US in a wide range of industries, including academic publishers, media and entertainment entities, a law firm, tech companies, and consulting and marketing firms

Tactic for the private-sector and gov hacks-much less sophisticated
Hackers allegedly used "password spraying": collected email addresses found on the internet and then simply tried common passwords on those accounts, stealing email inboxes if they managed to get in.

Charges include
conspiracy to commit computer intrusions
wire fraud
unauthorized access of a computer
aggravated identity theft

9 hackers carried out worldwide campaign since at least 2013
more than 30 terabytes of academic data and other sensitive information.

Just leaving this here:
Donald Trump’s Worst Deal
Trump helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…

2012:
after Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, signed multiple contracts with the Azerbaijani developers behind the project, plans were made to transform the tower into an “ultra-luxury property.”

Timing of #TrumpTowerBAKU was also curious
2014: Trump Organization publicly announced that it was helping to turn the tower into a hotel, but a construction boom in Baku had ended, and the occupancy rate for luxury hotels in the city hovered around thirty-five per cent.

2015 Trump became a candidate, news publications ran articles that raising questions about the Baku project, citing a series of cables from the USEmb in Azerbaijan in 2009 /2010, made public by WL - one saying Ziya Mammadov was “notoriously corrupt even for Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijanis behind the project were close relatives of Ziya Mammadov, including his son, Anar.

Trump’s company made the deal not just with Anar but also with Ziya’s brother Elton—an influential member of the Azerbaijani parliament.

Sustained back-and-forth between the Trump Org& Mammadovs has legal significance. If they participated in any illegal financial conduct, and if the Trump Organization exerted a degree of control over the project, the company could be vulnerable to criminal prosecution.

Mammadov family, in addition to its reputation for corruption, has a troubling connection: for years, it has been financially entangled with an Iranian family tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps

2008: year Tower was announced, Ziya Mammadov, Transportation Min, awarded a series of multimilln-$ contracts to Azarpassillo, an Iranian construction co. Keyumars Darvishi, chairman, was head of Raman, an Iranian construction firm that is controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.

2010: USEmb in Baku: “with so much of the nation’s oil wealth being poured into road construction” the Mammadovs had become disproportionately powerful in Azerbaijan
Ziya controlled country’s “largest commercial development co”
“many allegations..creative corrupt practices.”

One builder said he was always paid in cash
witnessed other contractors being paid in the same way
At Anar Mammadov’s company: “they would give us a giant pile of cash,”
“I got a $180k one time, which I fit into my laptop bag, and $200k another time.”

Two people who worked on the Trump Tower Baku said bribes were paid.
Azerbaijani tax officials, government inspectors, and customs officers showed up occasionally to pick up envelopes of cash.

May 2012, the month Baku deal was finalized, In a phone-in on CNBC, Trump said:
“Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do...It’s a horrible law and it should be changed.”
If US co's refused to give bribes, “you’ll do business nowhere.”

As the Mammadovs were preparing to build the tower, Ziya was cementing his financial relationship with the Darvishis, the Iranian family with ties to the country’s Revolutionary Guard.

At least 3 Darvishis—bros Habil, Kamal, Keyumars—appear to be associates of the Guard.

3/6/09, U.S. Embassy in Baku described Kamal as having formerly run “an alleged Revolutionary Guard-controlled business in Iran” called Nasr. It developed, acquired instruments, guidance systems, specialty metals needed to build ballistic missiles.

Kamal and Keyumars were frequent visitors to Azerbaijan
Kamal just established “a close business relationship/friendship” w Ziya Mammadov, & w his assistance, had been awarded “at least 8 major rd construction contracts, including construction of the Baku-Iranian Astara highway.”

IRGC has developed a shadow economy within Iran to fund its activities, expand power
smuggles into the country everything from consumer goods blocked by sanctions to drugs
owns seemingly legitimate companies in construction, energy, telecommunications, auto manufacturing, banking

Guard is linked “to dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of companies that appear to be private in nature but are run by [Revolutionary Guard] veterans."

Trumporg Attny said knew nothing of Ziya Mammadov’s relationship to the Darvishis until 2015
And yet, by that point, the U.S. Embassy cables had been online for 4 years.

Allison Melia, fmr CIA analyst of Iran’s economy said her team could have compiled a dossier on the Mammadovs and their connection to the Revolutionary Guard in “a couple of days.”

Why did the Darvishis want to work with the Mammadovs?Maybe bc the Mammadovs had their own private bank—one that had unfettered access to the global financial system.

During Trump Tower Baku project, money was going in and out of the US, UK, Turkey, Romania, UAE, and several other countries. With such projects, it can be exceedingly difficult to detect the spread of illicit funds.

At the same time, the Mammadovs’ money was flowing through holding companies in offshore banking centers per PanamaPapers

2004-14 Mammadovs funded enormous investments while spending tons on themselves. They may have received loans, or secretly owned profitable businesses or some of the investment money came from the Revolutionary Guard, through Azarpassillo.

A Department of Justice spokesperson would not comment on the possibility of its investigating the Trump Tower Baku deal. The White House declined to comment.

Throughout the Presidential campaign, Trump was in business with someone that his company knew was likely a partner with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

March, 2016, Trump said that his “No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Calling Iran the “biggest sponsor of terrorism around the world,”

Trump lamented that Iran had been allowed to develop new long-range ballistic missiles. According to Iran Watch, who monitors Iran’s military capabilities, much of the technology to make the missiles was provided by Nasr, the company once run by Kamal Darvishi.

1998: Trump purchased the GM Building, in Manhattan, he inherited as a tenant Iran’s Bank Melli.
1999: Treasury Department listed Bank Melli as an institution that “owned or controlled” by the govt of Iran & under sanctions.

Bank Melli was one of the primary financial institutions through which Iran was funnelling money to finance terrorism, develop weapons of mass destruction.
The Trump Organization kept Bank Melli as a tenant for four more years before terminating the lease.