Prosecutors Charge Iranian Teen With Pro-Soleimani Cyber Vandalism

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts have charged two men with defacing dozens of websites with pro-Iranian messages in the wake of the U.S. killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. An indictment filed on Sept. 3 alleges that Behzad Mohammadzadeh, a 19-year-old Iranian hacker who goes by the handle Mrb3hz4d, worked with a Palestianian cyber criminal, Marwan Abusrour (Mrwn007), to hack and vandalize at least 51 websites with pro-Iranian and pro-Soleimani messages after his death in January 2020. The two men, who remain abroad, allegedly “defaced those websites by replacing their content with pictures of the late General Soleimani against a background of the Iranian flag” along with “Down with America” messages.