BELGRADE, June 26 (Reuters) – Montenegrin police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested an Iranian national suspected of hacking attacks that damaged U.S. infrastructure to the tune of $3.4 billion, Montenegrin police said.
The 39-year-old man, with dual Iranian and Turkish citizenship, is sought by the Southern District Court in New York on charges including conspiracy to commit computer fraud, hacking, and identity theft.
He was arrested in the Adriatic coastal resort of Kotor, Montenegro’s police directorate said on Thursday.
“From 2013 onward, … he carried out massive hacking attacks … targeting more than 150 universities in the United States, causing damage estimated at over $3.4 billion,” it added in a statement.
The case will now go to a High Court judge in Montenegro’s capital of Podgorica for extradition proceedings, the police added.
The acquired data, as well as access to compromised university accounts, were used for the benefit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian entities, including universities, it said.
The FBI was not immediately available for comment.
Iran and the IRGC have a long history of state-sponsored cyber operations targeting the United States, often linked to IRGC.
In April, U.S. cybersecurity, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies warned about an escalation of Iranian hacking campaigns targeting equipment across critical U.S. infrastructure.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
