2 Hackers Charged for Defacing Sites after U.S. Airstrike Killed Iranian General

Behzad Mohammadzadeh (aka Mrb3hz4d), 19, and Marwan Abusrour
(aka Mrwn007), 25, have been charged with conspiracy to commit
intentional damage to a protected computer for a widespread
“cyber-assault” that affected over 1,400 websites with pro-Iranian
and pro-Palestinian messages.

“The hackers victimized innocent third parties in a campaign to
retaliate for the military action that killed Soleimani, a man
behind countless acts of terror against Americans and others that
the Iranian regime opposed,” said Assistant Attorney General for
National Security John C. Demers in a statement.

Although Abusrour and Mohammadzadeh have been behind a defacing
spree individually on their own over the last couple of years, they
began to work together starting last December, before stepping up
their attacks on January 3, a day after the US forces killed
Qassem Soleimani^[2]
in a drone airstrike near Baghdad International Airport.

With help from Abusrour, who provided Mohammadzadeh with access
to compromised websites, the latter went on to hack into at least
51 websites in the US by replacing their content with pictures of
the late general against a background of the Iranian flag along
with the message “Down with America,” alongside the message
“Suleimani was not a person/he was a belief/Beliefs never die.”

The indictment also highlighted a screenshot of the messages
shared between the two individuals and posted on Abusrour’s
Instagram account that revealed the list of seven websites that
were broken into, in addition to posting the results of their work
on social media and other online accounts in order to publicize
their defacements.

The two hackers have now been charged and risk sentences of up to
10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000, if found guilty,
according to the DoJ.

“Foreign hackers are a persistent commercial and national
security threat to the United States,” said US Attorney Andrew E.
Lelling. “Working with our law enforcement partners worldwide, we
will aggressively pursue, prosecute and apprehend those who use the
internet to attack American interests.”