U.S. intelligence officials say Iran’s increasingly aggressive use of cyberattacks and disinformation is motivated by several things: confusing and polarizing voters | Photo: Bloomberg
The same Iranian hacking group believed to have targeted the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns attempted to attack the WhatsApp accounts of employees of the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Meta Platforms said Friday.
Meta said it discovered the network of hackers, who posed as tech support agents for companies including Microsoft and Google, after people who received the suspicious WhatsApp messages reported them. Meta researchers linked the activity to the same network blamed for the hacking incident reported by the Trump campaign.
The FBI said this week that an Iranian hack of the Trump campaign and an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign were part of a broader Iranian effort to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
In a statement released Friday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said hackers had attempted to target the WhatsApp accounts of people in the Middle East, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as those of political and diplomatic officials, including unidentified officials associated with the Trump and Biden administrations. Meta has blocked a small group of accounts, the company said.
“We have not seen evidence that the targeted WhatsApp accounts have been compromised, but out of an abundance of caution, we are sharing our findings publicly, in addition to sharing information with law enforcement and our industry peers,” Meta said in a statement.
U.S. intelligence officials say Iran’s increasingly aggressive use of cyberattacks and disinformation has several motives: to confuse and polarize voters in an effort to undermine confidence in American democracy, erode support for Israel and oppose candidates it believes will increase tension between Washington and Iran.
Iran has vowed revenge against Trump, whose administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reinstated sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
In July, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Iranian government had provided covert support to U.S. protests against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. Iran-linked groups posed as activists online, encouraged campus protests and provided financial support to some protest groups, Haines said.
Messages left for the Trump and Harris campaigns were not immediately returned Friday.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: August 24, 2024 | 7:16 a.m. IS
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