Cyber Crime Center: Arrested Hacker Had No Criminal Intent

The spokesperson for the 'Cyber Crime Investigation Center' stated that the hacker recently arrested had infiltrated the websites of 38 government agencies and 370 universities, gaining access to three thousand payroll records, but had no 'criminal intent.' According to Tasnim News Agency, Mustafa Alizadeh said on Sunday, June 30, during a television program that this hacker had identified the content management sections of the hacked websites 'a year ago.' Alizadeh mentioned that the hacker had 'attempted' to inform government agencies to fix the 'security vulnerabilities' of their websites, but they 'did not pay attention.' He continued that this suspect had infiltrated three thousand websites, of which 38 belong to government organizations with the .gov suffix. The report indicates that the websites of 370 universities, the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, Customs, and the Organization of Industries and Mines were among those that this 'hacker' had infiltrated. The spokesperson for the 'Cyber Crime Investigation Center' further stated that this individual had obtained 'current information' from the hacked websites and 'databases of the agencies,' but since he had no criminal intent, he would not use the information, including the three thousand payroll records, for dissemination. The Cyber Crime Investigation Center, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced on Saturday the arrest of a 'hacker of several government websites.' In recent weeks, multiple reports have emerged regarding the hacking of several Iranian government websites, but Iranian police officials attributed these actions to groups affiliated with the Saudi Arabian government. However, it remains unclear if there is any connection between the hacker arrested by the Cyber Crime Investigation Center and the hacking of websites attributed to Saudi Arabia. The center, known as the 'Cyber Organized Crime Investigation,' was established in 2007 as part of the 'Cyber Defense of the IRGC' and has, over the years, created cases against several media activists and Iranian users in cyberspace, as well as undertaken several projects to infiltrate social networks and identify Iranian users. In March 2015, this center claimed to have monitored Facebook users and their activities, gaining oversight over eight thousand Facebook likes, and has other projects concerning Instagram, Viber, and WhatsApp. Recently, this center also reported the 'identification' of 170 individuals managing modeling pages on Instagram and claimed that legal cases had been formed against 29 individuals in this regard, with 8 arrested and the others summoned.