The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are warning that Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are likely intent on influencing and interfering with the U.S. elections to sow discord among voters and undermine public confidence in the U.S. electoral process.
The APT actors are creating fictitious media sites and spoofing legitimate media sites to spread obtained U.S. voter-registration data, anti-American propaganda, and misinformation about voter suppression, voter fraud, and ballot fraud.
The APT actors have historically exploited critical vulnerabilities to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, structured query language (SQL) injections attacks, spear-phishing campaigns, website defacements, and disinformation campaigns.
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These actors have conducted a significant number of intrusions against U.S.-based networks since August 2019. The actors leveraged several Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs)—notably CVE-2020-5902 and CVE-2017-9248—pertaining to virtual private networks (VPNs) and content management systems (CMSs).
