MICROSOFT: A U.S. Presidential Candidate Becomes Iranian Hackers’ Target
Microsoft announced on Friday that it had uncovered evidence that a faction of Iranian hackers were trying to access email accounts belonging to a presidential candidate of 2020.
Microsoft refuses to name the targeted presidential candidate in its blog post announcing the finding -according to The Verge article, but affirms that their profile has not been breached by the culprits -known as Phosphorus by the organization.
The project was just one of a number of accounts that the Iranian hackers sought to infiltrate between August and September of this year within a span of 30 days.
Microsoft has been paraphrased by the Verge that its threats intelligence center has witnessed the group make over 2,700 attempts to classify email accounts and then attacking “241” of them.
“The targeted accounts are affiliated with a U.S. presidential campaign, current and former U.S. government officials, global political reporters, and influential Iranians living outside Iran,” said Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president for consumer protection and trust. “As a result of these attempts, four accounts were compromised.”
As said by Microsoft, in order to break into them, Phosphorous tried to gain access to secondary email accounts linked to Microsoft accounts. They’d even attempt to steal the users-related mobile numbers. Burt said the attacks were not “technically sophisticated,” but “they tried to use a substantial amount of personal information” that belonged to their goals.
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