The United States on April 23 imposed more sanctions against Iran, designating four people and two companies that the U.S. Treasury Department said were "involved in malicious cyber-activity" on behalf of the country's military.
"These actors targeted more than a dozen U.S. companies and government entities through cyberoperations, including spear phishing and malware attacks," on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC), the Treasury Department said in a statement.
In addition to the sanctions, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI unsealed an indictment against the four individuals for their alleged roles in cyberactivity targeting U.S. entities.
The defendants are accused of engaging in a coordinated hacking campaign originating in Iran that targeted more than a dozen American companies and the U.S. Treasury and State departments, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. The activity started in about 2016 and continued through about April 2021, the Justice Department said.
The Treasury Department said Iranian cyber-actors "continue to target the United States using a wide range of malicious cyber-activity, from conducting ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure to conducting spear phishing and other social-engineering campaigns against individuals, companies, and government entities."
It said the IRGC-CEC was one of the Iranian government organizations behind the malicious cyber-activity and worked through a series of front companies to target the United States and several other countries.
Much of the Iranian public is not aware that some companies in Iran such as Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik, one of the two companies designated for sanctions on April 23, are used as front companies to support the IRGC-CEC, the department said.
"The Iranian public should be aware that the IRGC-CEC uses private companies and their employees to achieve illegal goals," it added.
The sanctions freeze any assets the entities and individuals have in U.S. jurisdiction and generally bar Americans from dealing with them.