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The US State Department on September 3 posted a reward of up to $10 million for information on Amir Yaryab, the Iranian official it says leads the cyber arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The offer runs through the Rewards for Justice program and seeks information that identifies or locates him.
Yaryab heads the IRGC Cyber-Electronic Command and its Cyber Operations Command, the department said. It described him as the figure who directs and controls several Iranian hacking groups, including CyberAv3ngers, Dadeh Afzar Arman, and Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik. He also oversees two units known as Shahid Hemmat and Shahid Shushtari, which the department says run attacks on US organizations.
Those groups have struck critical infrastructure across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, according to the announcement. The listed sectors include defense, news, shipping, travel, energy, and financial and telecommunications systems. The department said the crews have used malware to target civilian infrastructure around the world. The reward covers anyone who runs such attacks for a foreign government in breach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
CyberAv3ngers is already known to US utility operators. The group was tied to intrusions at American water systems in 2023 and 2024, and last year the State Department posted a separate $10 million reward for the hackers behind that campaign. Officials said in late July that Iranian operators had returned to the water sector, breaching more than 100 entities across at least 12 states.
The new reward lands amid a wider run of Iranian cyber activity aimed at US targets since this summer's conflict between Washington and Tehran. Iran-linked hackers have claimed the theft of emails from the FBI director's personal account and a breach at a medical device company. Last week the Justice Department accused hackers connected to Iran's military of entering email accounts at the Department of Labor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and several United Nations organizations. The Treasury Department has since sanctioned many of the same individuals.
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