An owner of an Israeli intelligence firm was sentenced to 80 months in the US prison for his involvement in an extensive spearphishing campaign that targeted individuals and organizations across the globe.
According to the court documents, Aviram Azari, 52, orchestrated intelligence gathering and spearphishing campaigns on behalf of his clients that targeted various groups of victims, including climate change activists, journalists and critics of the now-defunct German fintech group Wirecard.
Azari hired different hacking groups, including an unnamed hacker-for-hire outfit located in India, to send spearphishing emails to victims of the various “projects”. The hackers sent him reports informing him about their progress.
“One of Azari’s hacking Projects was focused on targeting individuals and organizations involved with climate change advocacy. Some of the hacked documents that were stolen from various of the victims’ online accounts were leaked to the press, resulting in articles relating to the New York and Massachusetts Attorneys Generals’ investigations into Exxon Mobil Corporation’s knowledge about climate change and potential misstatements made by Exxon regarding what it knew about the risks of climate change,” the US Department of Justice said.
According to the DoJ, over a nearly five-year period, Azari made more than $4.8 million by managing the intelligence gathering and spearphishing campaign.
Aviram Azari was arrested in September 2019 while traveling to the US from abroad and charged with computer intrusion, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Azari pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft. In addition to the prison term, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay forfeiture of $4,844,968.
