TARGET LOCATED

Iran Hackers Tried to Break Into Nuclear Scientists’ Private Emails

U.S. Treasury, Defense officials, and scientists around the world targeted.

Computer hackers linked to Iran have been attempting to break into the private emails of nuclear scientists, the Associated Press reports. A hacking group dubbed Charming Kitten has reportedly spent the past month trying to obtain access to the scientists’ messages, as well as those of U.S. Treasury officials, Washington, D.C. think-tank employees, and people involved in the nuclear deal struck between Washington and Tehran. “Presumably, some of this is about figuring out what is going on with sanctions,” said Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who was targeted. The list surfaced after Charming Kitten mistakenly left one of its servers open. They targeted a nuclear scientist for the Pakistan’s Ministry of Defense, a senior operator at the Research and Training Reactor in the Jordanian city of Ramtha, and a high-ranking researcher at the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria. They also targeted Guy Roberts, the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs. “This is something I’ve been worried about,” Roberts said.

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