The indictments follow a flurry of recent actions against alleged Iranian cyber spies including the announcement, earlier on Thursday, that entities and individuals associated with an Iranian hacking group sometimes dubbed APT39 were being sanctioned by the Treasury Department.
U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement it was the third time in three days that alleged Iranian hackers had been indicted, calling out what he described as "yet another effort by a rogue foreign nation to steal the fruits of this country's hard work and expertise." The defendants, identified as Said Pourkarim Arabi, 34, Mohammad Reza Espargham, whose age is unknown, and Mohammad Bayati, 34, are alleged to have impersonated colleagues or academics to get their targets to download malicious software, prosecutors said.