Three Iranians accused of working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been indicted by the U.S. Justice Department over a hacking plot against former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
According to a federal indictment that was released by Justice Department officials on Friday, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi are the three suspects in the Iranian hacking plot against the former president.
The indictment claims that the three Iranian hackers allegedly “engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign that used spearphishing and social engineering techniques to target and compromise the accounts of current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals associated with U.S. political campaigns.”
According to Friday’s indictment, the three Iranian hackers currently face charges of conspiracy to obtain information from a protected computer, defrauding and obtaining a thing of value, committing fraud involving authentication features, committing access device fraud, committing wire fraud while falsely registering domains, and committing aggravated identity theft.
READ MORE: Trump reveals ‘big threats’ on his life by Iran
Earlier this month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint statement confirming that Iranian hackers had stolen information from the Trump campaign and attempted to send the information to individuals associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign.
The indictment states, “Such activity is part of Iran’s continuing efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and unlawfully acquire information relating to current and former U.S. officials that could be used to advance the malign activities of the IRGC, including ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani.”
According to Fox News, the federal government has acknowledged that the former president’s campaign has been repeatedly targeted by Iran due to Trump’s decision to eliminate Qasem Soleimani, who was the former leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force.
Last week, Trump announced that there were “big threats” against his life by Iran after receiving a briefing on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him.”
