On Friday, August 9th, according to a report from Microsoft’s “Threat Analysis Center,” hackers associated with the Iranian government were detected attempting to infiltrate the account of a county-level American official a few weeks after they successfully breached it. In June, they also tried to breach the account of a “senior official” in the U.S. presidential campaign. Senior U.S. intelligence officials recently stated that Iran is attempting to interfere in the 2024 U.S. election.
Prior to this report from Microsoft, senior U.S. intelligence officials had already made a statement that Iran has increased its use of secret social media accounts to sow discord in American society and interfere with the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Researchers at Microsoft stated in their latest report, “A hacker group managed by the Intelligence Department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sent a phishing email to a senior official in the U.S. presidential election campaign. Another group assessed to be linked to the IRGC infiltrated the account of a county-level American government official with only minimal access rights.”
The report mentioned that these activities by Iranian-related organizations are part of a broader effort to gather intelligence on the U.S. election. The county employee’s account was breached in May as part of a larger “password spraying attack,” where hackers use common or leaked passwords across many accounts until one is successfully infiltrated.
Additionally, the report stated that the hacker involved in this breach did not gain access to any other accounts, and Microsoft has informed the targeted user.
Researchers also revealed that another Iranian organization has been launching two covert news websites that use artificial intelligence to extract content from legitimate news sites and target American voters with opposing political views. These two websites are named “Nio Thinker” (left-leaning site) and “Savannah Time” (conservative site).
The “About Us” pages of both websites have similar formats and do not list any contact information.
According to Bloomberg, the FBI stated that Iranian agents posed as members of the right-wing group “Proud Boys” in 2020 to intimidate voters, resulting in two individuals being charged.
U.S. cybersecurity officials mentioned that in the same year, Iranian hackers infiltrated a municipal government website used to announce election results, but the attackers were apprehended before carrying out any malicious activities.
In July, U.S. intelligence officials issued warnings that China, Russia, and Iran are recruiting individuals in the U.S. for political propaganda to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
On Wednesday, August 7th, the U.S. State Department confirmed the indictment of six Iranian hackers accused of infiltrating the control systems of American utility companies.