Security News > 2020 > September > 2 Hackers Charged for Defacing Sites after U.S. Airstrike Killed Iranian General

The US Department of Justice on Tuesday indicted two hackers for their alleged involvement in defacing several websites in the country following the assassination of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani earlier this January.

"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 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 "Suleimani was not a person/he was a belief/Beliefs never die."

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.

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