2018 More than a data breach, cyber espionage campaign on Higher Education

In March 2018, nine Iranian hackers were indicted over a giant attack on over 300 universities worldwide. 144 US universities were affected, attackers also targeted 176 educational institutions in other 21 countries, including Canada, the UK, Germany, Israel and Japan. More than 100,000 professors’ email accounts were targeted and about 8,000 of them were finally compromised. According to the official information, 31 terabytes of “valuable intellectual property and data” was exposed. According to the DOJ, says the incident should be associated with a Tehran-based hacker clearinghouse – the Mabna Institute that was formed in 2013 and had ties to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York characterized the case as one of the largest state-sponsored hacking campaigns ever not only in Higher Education but in general so we see that Higher EductionaCybergaatcks grew sing 2005 from few incidents to hundreds per year including such large ones as this one.