[Source: Reuters]

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday unsealed new and updated charges against 17 individuals working with an Iranian ​company that it alleges carried out hacks and data theft ‌against U.S. universities, companies and government agencies.

The DOJ said in a statement, opens new tab that the individuals were working with the Mabna Institute, which carried out hacking campaigns on ​behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian ​government and university clients.

The campaigns targeted hundreds of U.S. and ⁠international universities, dozens of U.S. companies, and at least five U.S. ​state and federal government agencies, it said.

A previous indictment announced in March ​2018 had charged nine of the 17 with a hacking campaign that targeted the U.S. Labor Department, the United Nations and computer networks in Hawaii and Indiana.

The ​Iranian government’s representatives at the United Nations in New York did ​not immediately respond to a request for comment. Contact information for the Mabna Institute ‌was ⁠not immediately available.

The charges announced on Tuesday reveal “the broader network allegedly behind a sweeping, state-sponsored campaign to steal research and intellectual property from American universities, businesses, and government institutions,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District ​of New York ​Jamie McDonald ⁠said in the statement.

The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program on Tuesday announced a $10 million reward for ​information leading to the location of several of ​the people ⁠included in Tuesday’s charges.

According to Tuesday’s statement by the DOJ, the Mabna Institute since at least 2013 and through 2017 targeted more than 100,000 ⁠accounts ​of professors around the world, including the ​successful penetration of roughly 8,000 professor email accounts across 144 U.S.-based universities and 178 universities ​in other countries.