US offers up to $10 million reward for info on malicious Iranian cyber group

A US agency is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information on ‘CyberAv3ngers,’ a malicious cyber operations group from Iran.

The US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program issued a notice against at least six Iranians linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who have allegedly participated in malicious cyber activities against US.

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Hamid Homayunfal, Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin Saberian were named in the RFJ notice.

Lashgarian, who the RFJ claims to have been behind various cyber and intelligence operations, was named as the head of the IRGC’s Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) and a commander in the IRGC’s Quds Forces.

The others are reportedly senior officials of the IRGC-CEC.

The group reputedly targeted and compromised the Vision series of programmable logic controllers (PLCs) made by Israel-based Unitronics, which are used in water and wastewater, energy, food and beverage, manufacturing, healthcare, and other industries.

In October 2023, CyberAv3ngers actors claimed credit for cyberattacks against Israeli PLCs on their Telegram channel.

“Since at least November 22, 2023, CyberAv3ngers actors have compromised the default credentials in these PLCs across the United States and left a message on the devices’ digital screen,” the RFJsaid.

“You have been hacked, down with Israel. Every equipment ‘made in Israel’ is CyberAv3ngers legal target” were some of the messages shown on devices upon hacking.

All six individuals have been sanctioned by the US since February 2024. As a result, any belongings and properties in the US have been seized and all transactions with US nationals blocked.

US ‘very vulnerable’

Meanwhile, senior US intelligence officer specializing in counter-terrorism and code-breaking, Malcolm Nance, told Al Arabiya English’s Riz Khan that the US is “very vulnerable” to disinformation campaigns.

As the highly-watched American presidential election edges closer, information streams – primarily social media – is becoming inundated with factually inaccurate claims, some of which are blamed on Russian, Chinese, and sometimes Iranian state-run propaganda machines.

In July, the US Justice Department said it moved to disrupt a Russian operation that sought to spread propaganda in the US, Europe and Israel using artificial intelligence (AI).

At the time, US officials took down numerous accounts on social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter), which were reportedly made and operated using AI.

Microsoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a “high ranking official” on the US presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level US official.

The breaches were part of Iranian groups’ increasing attempts to influence the US presidential election in November, the researchers were quoted as saying in a report by Reuters.

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