A hacker group linked to the Iranian government attempted to interrupt into the e-mail accounts of presidential campaign staff as a part of a large-scale intelligence gathering operation ahead of the U.S. election, Microsoft Corp. said on Friday.
Attackers with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used the compromised email address of a former political adviser to phish one other senior presidential campaign official in June, in line with findings from Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center. That group, which Microsoft calls Mint Sandstorm, also tried unsuccessfully to log into the account of a former presidential candidate. The report didn’t discover the person targets by name.
Other Iranian groups are using artificial intelligence to post offensive content against former President Donald Trump online and to create inflammatory posts about controversial issues corresponding to gender reassignment surgery, the report said.
Microsoft researchers also said that Iranian groups which have tried to undermine confidence within the electoral system up to now have been preparing influence operations since March. Using web sites with fabricated and plagiarized content, alleged media operations run by Iranian groups have also sought to amplify polarizing political messages on issues corresponding to presidential candidates and Israel's war against Hamas, the researchers found.
“Iran's cyber capabilities are defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces,” Ali Karimi Magham, a spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York, said in an emailed statement. “Iran has no intention or plans to launch cyber attacks. The U.S. presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere.”
The findings are the newest evidence that foreign governments are conducting secret operations ahead of the U.S. election in November. U.S. intelligence officials warned in July that Russia, China and Iran were recruiting people within the U.S. to spread propaganda. An Iranian government official denied that accusation.
In 2020, in line with the FBI, Iranian agents posed as members of the right-wing group Proud Boys to intimidate voters, resulting in charges against two men. That same yr, Iranian hackers broke into an internet site that a city government within the US used to publish election results. But the attackers were caught before they may perform any nefarious activities, US cybersecurity officials said.
State hackers have long attempted to penetrate American election campaigns through email attacks. One example is the 2016 Russian hack, during which a state-sponsored group ultimately released internal emails from Hillary Clinton's staff.
The US State Department on Wednesday identified six suspected Iranian hackers accused of penetrating the commercial control systems of American utility corporations.
(Updated to incorporate response from Iranian government official in fifth paragraph.)
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