Washington: US technology giant Microsoft said that Iran-linked hacker groups were allegedly attempting to interfere in the upcoming US presidential election through covert news websites, influencing popular topics and phishing.
“Iranian actors have recently laid the groundwork for influence operations aimed at US audiences and potentially seeking to impact the 2024 US presidential election. This recent cyber-enabled influence activity arises from a combination of actors that are conducting initial cyber reconnaissance and seeding online personas and websites into the information space,” Microsoft said in a report.
The groups are allegedly focused on two activities: setting up covert news websites targeting voters of opposing views and launching operations, which may be described as intelligence gathering, on political campaigns, the company said.
“One Iranian group has been launching covert news sites targeting US voter groups on opposing ends of the political spectrum. One of the sites … caters to left-leaning audiences and insults former president Donald Trump, calling him an ‘opioid-pilled elephant in the MAGA china shop’ and a ‘raving mad litigiosaur.’ Another … focuses on topics including LGBTQ+ issues and gender reassignment,” a statement published ahead of the report read, adding that there was evidence that artificial intelligence had been used to create messages that plagiarized material from some US media outlets.
As for the other activities, another Iranian group reportedly affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attempted to hack the account of a high-ranking presidential campaign official in early summer using the email of a “former senior adviser,” Microsoft said. The phishing attempt failed, and the attempted target has been notified, the tech giant added.
“[Another] Iranian group compromised an account of a county-level government employee in a swing state… Since early 2023, the group’s operations have focused on strategic intelligence collection particularly in satellite, defense, and health sectors with some targeting of US government organizations, often in swing states,” the statement said, adding that lack of further information on the group’s activities prevented the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) from determining its final objectives.
In its report, MTAC also listed six “Iranian actors with assessed links to election interference,” mostly conducting hacking activities.
In late July, Iran’s mission to the UN rejected US intelligence claims regarding Tehran’s alleged interference in the upcoming US election.
The US presidential election is slated to take place on November 5. It will be a face-off between former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party.
