Ex-US Intelligence Agent Charged With Spying and Helping Iranian Hackers

The US Department of Justice announced espionage charges against a former US Air Force intelligence officer. Uu. With the highest level of top-secret permission to provide secret defence information to the Iranian government after it was transferred to Iran in 2013.

Monica Elfrieda Witt, 39, was a US Air Force intelligence officer and a special agent of the Office of Special Investigations of the Air Force, who served in the Air Force from 1997 to 2008 and hired by the Department of Defense (DOD) as a contractor until 2010.

The indictment states that Witt once had the highest level of secret security checks and had access to the details of secret counterintelligence operations, real names of sources, and personalities of US intelligence officers.

Hackers appear to have stolen $28,200 from users’ accounts


In February 2012, Witt allegedly went to Iran to attend a conference on “Hollywood” for the full cost, conducted by the Iranian organization New Horizon, which, according to the Department of Justice, focuses on promoting anti-American actions. Propaganda, and then in 2013, finally switched to the side of Iran.

She leaked secret information to Iran


Once settled in Iran, Witt worked actively for the Iranian government, which provided her with computer equipment and housing, and revealed the code name and secret mission of the United States Special Access Program And its specific goal.

As part of her work, Witt investigated the US intelligence community agents (USIC), with whom she was familiar and previously worked, and developed “target packages” that provided agent profiles for four Iranian hackers who were also indicted by the Department of Justice.

Witt even shared the name of her former US agent. It is still one of the assets that threaten the life of the agent.

Then, Iranian hackers used this profile information to send phishing emails and social media posts to Witt’s former colleagues with malicious links, trying to trick US agents into installing malware. which allowed them to spy on the actions of their computer, webcam and keystrokes.

Witt faces conspiracy charges and two cases of transmitting national defense information to a foreign government. The FBI issued an arrest warrant for Witt, who is still believed to be in Iran.

She joined the Iranian hackers "Game of Thrones"


In addition to it, the Justice Ministry also charged four Iranian citizens (Mojtaba Masumpur, Behzad Mesri, Hossein Parwar and Mohamad Pariyar) for collusion, computer intrusion attempts and identity theft, which is aggravated by their role in helping to attack Witt her former colleagues.

Mesri is the same Iranian hacker who was charged last year by the Ministry of Justice in connection with cyber attacks against HBO and the episodes of the Game of Thrones in 2017.

The authorities claimed that Mesri compromised the accounts of several HBO users to “repeatedly get unauthorized access to the company's computer servers and steal valuable stolen data, including confidential and proprietary information, financial documents and contact information.” "

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Mesri even tried to extort money from HBO for $ 6 million to destroy the stolen data.

Mesri, Masampur and Parvar also face sanctions for participating in Net Peygard, according to the US Treasury.

“This case underlines the danger to our intelligence specialists and the extent to which our opponents identify them, expose them, point them out and, in some rare cases, oppose their nations, which they have vowed to protect,” the attorney general John Demers said in a statement.

"When our intelligence officers are attacked or betrayed, the National Security Department will tirelessly seek justice against the perpetrators."

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