The Office of Foreign Asset Control of the U.S.-based Treasury Department has incorporated ten persons, two institutions, as well as some crypto addresses which were supposedly linked to a ransomware group (operating in Iranian jurisdiction) to the record of Specially Designated Nationals, properly making it illegitimate for the residents of the United States to get involved with them.
Iranian Ransomware Group Sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury
In a declaration on Wednesday, it was stated by the U.S. Treasury that the firms and people in the respective ransomware group had some association with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (an arm of the military of Iran). According to the accusations, the group organized a range of malevolent cyber-enabled operations, taking into account sabotaging the systems of the children’s hospital (based in the United States) in June previous year.
The other bad activities include the targeting of Middle Eastern and United States-based personnel in government, diplomatic, and defense sectors. Seven BTC addresses were listed by the OFAC for allegedly having an association with a couple of nationals of Iran named Amir Hossein Nikaeed Ravar and Ahmad Khatibi Aghada, as included in the secondary sanctions of the country.
In the words of the Treasury Department, there was a connection between Khatibi and Afkar System (a company of computer and technology). The firm was one of the 2 organizations which were sanctioned. Nikaeed, as mentioned by the government department, registered and leased the network infrastructure to help the ransomware group.
The participants of the ransomware group as well as the rest of the cybercriminals, without taking into account their origin, aimed at the critical infrastructure and businesses across several countries in which the United States is also included, as disclosed by the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence’s undersecretary “Brian Nelson.”
Iranian National Steals away $50,000 in Crypto
He asserted that they will keep on taking measures to confront as well as push back the threats like ransomware. The above-mentioned notice surfaced as an indictment was declared by the Justice Department against Mansour Ahmadi and Khatibi Nikaeed.
As brought to the front by the Justice Department, the ransomware group of Iran aimed at an accounting company (based in New Jersey) in February, and Khatibi allegedly took away nearly $50,000 worth of crypto in return for not trading the data of the firm on the dark market.
