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WASHINGTON D.C. (WSAU) – The U.S. Justice Department has officially charged three Iranian nationals who hacked Trump campaign emails and social media accounts in hopes of stealing information that could be sold to media outlets.
According to a DOJ press release obtained by the Post Millennial, alleged Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members Masoud Jalili, 36, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, 34, and Yaser Balaghi, 37, have been charged with numerous crimes including unauthorized access to computers to obtain information from a protected computer, conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, eight counts of wire fraud while falsely registering domain names, and eight counts of aggravated identity theft.
FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke about the charges in the release saying, “Today’s charges represent the culmination of a thorough and long-running FBI investigation that has resulted in the indictment of three Iranian nationals for their roles in a wide-ranging hacking campaign sponsored by the Government of Iran. The conduct laid out in the indictment is just the latest example of Iran’s brazen behavior. So today the FBI would like to send a message to the Government of Iran – you and your hackers can’t hide behind your keyboards.”
According to the Associated Press, former US Homeland Security advisors, ambassadors to Israel, CIA deputy directors, and State and Defense Department officials were also victims of the hack.
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