Iranian Educated Manticore Targets Leading Tech Academics research.checkpoint.com/2025/iran…

Amid ongoing tensions between Iran and Israel, the Iranian threat group Educated Manticore, associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has launched spear-phishing campaigns targeting Israeli journalists, high-profile cyber security experts and computer science professors from leading Israeli universities.

For the last few years, Check Point Research has been monitoring the activity of the Iranian APT group, Educated Manticore. This group aligns with activity tracked by the wider security community as APT42, Charming Kitten, or Mint Sandstorm, and is believed to operate on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence Organization (IRGC-IO).