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Researchers from Microsoft Report Iranian Hackers Targeting US Officials

Researchers from Microsoft revealed on Friday (9) that hackers linked to the Iranian government attempted to break into the account of a “senior official” of the United States presidential campaign in June, weeks afterpromehave the account of a public servant at municipal level.

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According to the report, these attacks are part of an intensification of attempts by Iranian groups to influence the American presidential election in November. The document did not provide further details about the “employee” in question.

The report follows recent statements by senior U.S. intelligence officials who said they have seen Iran step up its use of clandestine social media accounts aimed at sowing political discord in the United States.

Iran's mission in ONU em New York stated that its cyber capabilities were “defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces” and that it had no plans to launch cyber attacks. “The US presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere,” the mission added in response to the allegations in the report. Microsoft.

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The report mentioned that “a group linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit sent a spear-phishing email to a senior presidential campaign official” and “another group, with alleged ties to the IRGC , withpromeyour a user account with minimum access permissions in a district-level government.”

The researchers also said that another Iranian group was launching “underground” news sites that used artificial intelligence to extract content from legitimate news sites and targeted the content at U.S. voters on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They named two sites: Nio Thinker, a left-leaning site, and Savannah Time, a conservative site.

When accessed on Friday, both sites had similar formats on the “About Us” page and neither listed contact details. Nio Thinker describes itself as “your destination for progressive, insightful news and analysis that challenges the status quo,” while Savannah Time claims to be “a reflection of the values ​​that make Savannah unique” and a place “where conservative values ​​meet vision location.”

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