Iran-backed hacker demanded 80 bitcoin in anti-Israel ransom
A group of anonymous hackers who recently attempted to extort nearly $2 million in bitcoin from a prominent Israeli university are linked to Iranian security services, local outlet i24NEWS reports.
In February, the collective calling itself DarkBit targeted the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa (Technion). The group claimed to have stolen “all” of the university’s data and threatened to put it up for sale within five days unless they received 80 bitcoins ($1.7 million) in ransom.
The attack forced the Technion to postpone a number of exams and shut down its IT systems.
Back in February, DarkBit was a very unknown entity. Speculation was rife as to who exactly was behind the attack guesses ranging from a disgruntled employee to a pro-Palestinian activist.
But in a recent announcement, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate confirmed that the attack came from MuddyWater, a group that US authorities have previously linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
MuddyWater has been flagged on a number of occasions by UK and US investigators as targeting public and private organisations in telecommunications, defence, local authorities and the energy industry.
MuddyWater peppered its ransom with anti-Israel rhetoric
Israeli authorities believe the Israeli university hack may have been motivated more by ideology than greed because of the anti-Israeli language peppering the demand for emails.
“We regret to inform you that we have had to completely hack the Technion network and transfer “all” data to our secure servers“, the group wrote. “Keep calm, take a breath and think about an apartheid regime causing problems here and there. They should pay for their lies and crimes, their name and shame.”
The note then went on to refer to Israeli occupation, war crimes and “the destruction of the future and all the dreams we had”.
It rounds off the claim that MuddyWater, at least in part, was motivated by the fact that the university “shoots highly qualified experts.”
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According to Israeli defense experts, this is just one of “dozens of attempted Iranian cyberattacks over the past year.” News of this latest attack is just coming hours after North Macedonian officials linked Iran-based IP addresses to a series of bomb threats in the country.
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