Microsoft-Funded Researchers Report That Iranian Hackers Are Targeting U.S. Politicians, Officials Before 2024 Election
OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
12:38 PM – Friday, August 9, 2024
On Friday, Microsoft researchers reported that hackers with connections to the Iranian government have been attempting to access the account of an American “high-ranking official” during the presidential campaign trail. This is just weeks after the hackers breached the account of a county-level U.S. official.
The researchers claimed in a report that the hacks were a part of Iranian groups’ growing efforts to sway the U.S. presidential election in November.
“A group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit sent a spearphishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign,” and “another group with assessed links to the IRGC compromised a user account with minimal access permissions at a county-level government,” the report added.
The claim comes as top U.S. intelligence officials recently testified that they had observed Iran increasing its use of covert social media profiles in an attempt to sow political division in the United States.
However, according to a statement provided to Reuters by the country’s UN mission in New York, Iran has no plans to launch cyberattacks, which described its cyber capabilities as “defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces.”
“The U.S. presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere,” the mission stated in response to the allegations.
The Microsoft-funded researchers went on to say in a joint statement that the actions looked to be part of a larger effort by Iranian organizations to gather information about U.S. political campaigns and to focus on U.S. swing states as well.
According to the report, the county employee’s account was compromised in May as a result of a larger “password spray operation,” in which hackers utilize widely used or publicly available passwords on numerous accounts in an attempt to gain access.
The report also stated that the targets were informed and the hackers were unable to access any more accounts as a result of that incident.
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