OMID GHAFFARINIA

Caution

Omid Ghaffarinia is wanted for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to conduct a coordinated campaign of distributed denial of service ("DDoS") attacks (https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/iranian-ddos-attacks/view) against the United States financial sector and other United States companies from 2012 through 2013. Ghaffarinia was the co-founder of Mersad, a private computer security company that performed work on behalf of the Iranian Government, and a former member of the Iran-based computer hacking groups Ashiyane Digital Security Team and Sun Army. He allegedly created malware to remotely compromise computer systems that formed part of the Mersad botnet that was used to conduct the DDoS attacks and also allegedly authored the attack script used by the Kamikaze botnet. Ghaffarinia has claimed to have successfully compromised thousands of computer servers based in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel.

On January 21, 2016, a grand jury in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, indicted Ghaffarinia for his alleged involvement in the scheme and a federal warrant was issued for his arrest after he was charged with conspiracy to commit, and aid and abet, computer intrusion.